Child Wife, also known as Child Bride (1936), is an oil on canvas painting by Hungarian-Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil (1913 – 1941). It measures 53 × 76 cm, and belongs to the Saraya private collection.
Composition Child Wife is an oil on canvas painting depicting a young Indian girl sitting alone dressed in her bridal outfit.Sundaram, p. 254Sundaram, p. 805 It measures 53 × 76 cm, and belongs to the Saraya private collection.
Background Amrita Sher-Gil (1913 – 1941), was a Hungarian-Indian artist. At the age of 12 years, in India, she witnessed a girl of age 13 years being married to a 50 year old man. She completed Child Wife in 1936, the year after painting Mother India. From her home in Simla, in a letter to her friend Denise Prouteaux dated July 1937, Sher-Gil told her that the painting is "too influenced by Gauguin. I am now getting away from his influence".Sundaram, p. 391
Interpretation Art historian Sonal Khullar interprets the Child Wife and Mother India as neither depicting rosy images of women, but they have a connection with Indian nationalist aspirations for reform in India. She says that Sher-Gil's paintings of 1935 to 1936 "refuse to represent India as voluptuous, colorful, sunny and superficial"... "their dark, detached, and distant subjects critique nationalism's idealization of the masses".
See also List of paintings by Amrita Sher-Gil
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