Portrait of the Artist's Wife with Her Son is an oil-on-canvas painting by Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, dated 1783.Hirschfelder, Dagmar; Lata, Sabine (eds.). From Odesa to Berlin: European Painting from the 16th to the 19th Century. Munich: Hirmer, 2025 (), pp. 162–183. It depicts the artist's wife, Anna Maria Lampi, nursing their son Franz Xavier.Amman, G.; Dankl, G.; Gürtler, E. Antikensehnsucht und Heimatsuche: Meisterwerke des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Tiroler Ferdinandeum Innsbruck. Vaduz: Liechtensteinische Staatliche Kunstsammlung, 1994 (), pp. 46–50. It is held in the collection of the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art and was shown in 2025 at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin in the exhibition From Odesa to Berlin.
Description The painting shows Anna Maria Lampi seated with her infant son resting on a cushion while she breastfeeds him. The mother occupies the center of the composition, her upper body slightly inclined to the right. Her gaze is directed outward rather than toward the child, while the child is turned away from the viewer and lies quietly in her arms.
The background is dark and largely unadorned, focusing attention on the figures. Lampi uses warm light to emphasize the faces, skin tones, and exposed breast of the mother, while the surrounding textiles, including a red cushion and green dress, provide restrained but rich color contrasts.
Context The painting belongs to the tradition of the family portrait, which became increasingly significant in the eighteenth century as a means of representing domestic ideals and social identity. Unlike many of Lampi's official portraits of aristocratic patrons, this work is regarded as an intimate and personal image created within the artist's own family circle.Amman, Dankl, Gürtler 1994, pp. 46–50.
Lampi was born in 1751 in Romeno, in the Trentino, and became one of the leading portrait painters of the late eighteenth century. He worked in Vienna and later at the Russian imperial court, gaining renown for portraits of aristocratic and courtly sitters.Lovecky, Katharina. "Johann Baptist Lampi der Ältere." IN-SIGHT: Johann Baptist Lampi The Elder and The Younger, The Belvedere, Vienna
Interpretation Art historians have noted the unusual intimacy of the composition, particularly the act of breastfeeding, which was still relatively uncommon in elite portraiture of the late eighteenth century.Badinter, Elisabeth. Die Mutterliebe: Geschichte eines Gefühls vom 17. Jahrhundert bis heute. Munich, 1981. The work has been interpreted in relation to changing ideas of motherhood, childhood, and family life during the Age of Enlightenment, especially under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's educational theories, which promoted maternal care and breastfeeding as natural duties of motherhood.Payne, William H. Rousseau's Émile or Treatise on Education. London, 1892.
At the same time, the painting departs from traditional religious images of the Maria lactans, in which the Virgin Mary nurses the Christ Child. Instead, Lampi presents a secular and individualized representation of maternity, emphasizing the domestic and emotional relationship between mother and child.
Style The work combines elements of late eighteenth-century portraiture with the sensibility associated with sentimental culture and Enlightenment family ideals. The mother’s informal hairstyle, relaxed dress, and direct physical engagement with the child distinguish the painting from more conventional aristocratic portraiture of the period.Baillio, Joseph; Salmon, Xavier. Vigée Le Brun. Paris/New York/Ottawa, 2015, pp. 25–31, 87–88.
Comparisons have been made with works by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Anton Graff, whose family portraits likewise explored more intimate forms of representation in the late eighteenth century.Berckenhagen, Ekhart. Anton Graff: Leben und Werk. Berlin, 1967, pp. 167–176.Baillio, Salmon 2015, pp. 27–31.
Exhibition history The painting was included in the exhibition From Odesa to Berlin: European Painting from the 16th to the 19th Century, held at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin in 2025, where it was presented alongside other portraits from the Odesa Museum collection and in dialogue with works from Berlin collections, highlighting changing representations of family and intimacy in European painting.
References
Bibliography
Hirschfelder, Dagmar; Lata, Sabine (eds.). From Odesa to Berlin: European Painting from the 16th to the 19th Century. Munich, 2025. . Lovecky, Katharina. "IN-SIGHT: Johann Baptist Lampi The Elder and The Younger." Belvedere Collection Online.