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.

Provenance

JS Maas & Co, London; Sir David Scott, 1986; Sotheby's, 2008.