The First Piano Lesson

In this painting motherhood is presented in idealised form – the mother and baby are pristine and sit at a piano, a marker of status within the domestic sphere and a key indication of middle-class standing. The place of middle-class children within the home and attitudes of parents towards them is under-researched and a subject that the Geffrye hopes to open up with a major exhibition in the future. The painting modifies the stereotypical view that Victorian children were to be seen and not heard. Children have been under-represented in the Geffrye Museum’s collection of Victorian paintings.