(item sold as is, égrenure, see photos) Porcelain France 1920s Maternal Love Self-portrait Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun and her daughter Jeanne-Lucie-Louise known as Julie Diameter: 245mm In 1786, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun made a self-portrait with his daughter, exhibited at the Salon of 1787. The painting touches the public so much by the veracity of the feelings represented that it is quickly nicknamed La Tendresse maternal. In the wake of this success and at the request of the Comte d'Angiviller, director general of the King's Buildings, the artist painted in 1789 a variant in Greek costume which was just as famous. is that they crystallize the change which then takes place in mentalities concerning the place of the mother and the conception of maternal love. Since the middle of the century, there has been a global craze for everything related to "nature": unprecedented development of natural sciences, interest in the life of "wild" populations discovered during exploratory trips around the globe, questioning of concepts. of society and education by a philosopher like Jean-Jacques Rousseau - in Émile, the latter places the sensitive experience of the child at the heart of his reflection. The expressiveness of feelings that we had hitherto tried to hide enter into this general movement. In society, in art as in literature, emotion, especially in its tearful form, occupies a major place. This very cultural construction of nature has consequences on the perception of maternal feeling, now considered "instinctive". The mother and the love which attaches her to her child are glorified by society, and we see the development of new "natural" practices such as breastfeeding, in reverse of the still very common practice of childcare. nanny of the children of aristocratic and bourgeois families. This evolution reaches to the top of society, since the queen herself, Marie-Antoinette, privately claims daily proximity to her children that court etiquette theoretically contradicted.