The Tender Mother

This is one of four stipple engravings by Gillray after drawings by the amateur artist Lavinia Spencer 1762-1831). It is also one of a pair of engravings published on the same day in 1787, the other being The Happy Mother. Both are landscape ovals featuring an idealized mother in classical garb looking over at a small child who approaches on tip-toe.

In The Happy Mother, the woman rests an embroidery tambour on her lap as the young child approaches, holding a bird. In The Tender Mother, the woman cradles a sleeping infant while the child sneaks up impishly perhaps to tickle the foot of her sleeping sibling. The mother looks down at her with a sly smile as if to say, "What do you think you're up to?"

Both were produced as stipple engravings in the manner of Bartolozzi, and were undoubtedly commissioned by Lady Spencer and/or the publisher Susanna Vivares based on Gillray's earlier work on Lady Spencer's L'Enfant Trouvé in 1785. Both also demonstrate Gillray's willingness and continued capabiity to create "serious" prints even when, as in 1787, most of his output had returned to caricature and satire.

Sources and Reading

• Commentary from the British Museum on The Tender Mother.
• Draper Hill, Mr. Gillray The Caricaturist, 1965, p. 27
• Tim Clayton, James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire p. 75.
• "Lavinia Spencer, Countess Spencer," Wikipedia
• "Susanna Vivares," British Musuem
• "Francesco Bartolozzi," Wikipedia
• "Angelica Kauffman," Wikipedia
• "Embroidery hoops and frames," Wikipedia