Moeder met kind op de arm 1909

This small etching, ‘Mother with Child in Arms’, was made by the Dutch artist Victor Hageman, likely in the late 19th or early 20th century. In its tender depiction of the Madonna and Child, it draws on a long tradition of Christian imagery that elevated motherhood to a sacred status. Hageman was a contemporary of Jan Toorop, and like him, worked at a time when the formal institutions of both art and religion were being challenged by modern social forces. The Netherlands was experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization, and an increasingly militant labor movement was clamoring for social reforms. It’s easy to see in this image a nostalgic appeal to traditional values, and to a time when family and faith were seen as bulwarks against the disruptive forces of modernity. To understand the significance of this work fully, we can draw on a range of historical resources, from exhibition reviews, to religious pamphlets, to social surveys of the period. The role of the historian is to reconstruct the social and institutional contexts that give meaning to art.