Lady with Four Children - Allegory of Charity

Wallerant Vaillant - engraver

Wallerant Vaillant - engraver - Lady with Four Children - Allegory of Charity
Vaillant likely portrayed the members of his large family. Several portraits of women, as well as this one with a mother and her children, have been considered as depictions of the artist’s wife, but Wallerant never married. One copy of this engraving bears a contemporary inscription identifying the figure as the wife of Wallerant’s brother, Bernard. In the second state of the print, Vaillant added the inscription Charitas (Charity), meaning the sheet was to be taken also as an allegory of Christian love (the exhibited copy has been trimmed and the inscription is missing).
date:
measurements: height 380 mm
width 295 mm
in collections:
material: paper
technique: mezzotint, second state
inventory number: R 169228
gallery collection: Collection of Prints and Drawings