Bébé va prendre son premier bain 1863

Louis Paul Pierre Dumont made this print, “Bébé va prendre son premier bain”, sometime in the 19th century. At its heart, the image captures a child’s first encounter with the sea, a scene pregnant with psychological and cultural undertones. The child gestures expansively, symbolizing an eagerness to embrace the world, a motif that finds echoes in classical depictions of figures like the infant Hercules, reaching for the heavens. This primal scene of discovery is filtered through layers of societal expectation, symbolized by the mother’s veiled figure. Here we observe the motif of covering, a symbol of mourning, reclusion, but also protection, as seen in countless religious artworks, such as veiled Madonnas. The child’s open arms evoke a powerful emotional response: the wonder and fear of the unknown, a sensation which, from antiquity until today, has resurfaced in countless images and continues to engage us on a subconscious level. Each generation reinvests these gestures with new significance, influenced by their own zeitgeist and cultural memory.