The sick child in art

Abstract

There are at least 12 paintings from the late 17th to the early 20th centuries titled, 'The Sick Child'. They were painted by well-known and obscure artists from Holland, Norway, France, England, Spain, North and South America. Most depict infants, and some older children, always in their homes, most with the mother at the bedside. The Sick Child paintings are a window into the human condition before hospital treatment was the norm, and childhood illness and death were an experience common to almost all families. They depict the mother-child bond of love and protection, complex human emotions, and the hardship and vulnerability of children and families of those eras. There remains a role for art in health and medicine, even in the 21st century.

Keywords: Child Health; History Of Medicine.

Figure 1. The Sick Child, Gabriel Metsu, Holland, c. 1660–1665. Location and photo credit: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Figure 2. The Sick Child, Edvard Munch, Norway, 1896. Location: Gothenburg Museum of Art. Photo credit: Hossein Sehatiou.

Figure 3. Mother at the bedside of a sick child, Christian Krohg, Norway, 1880. Location: National Museum of Norway, Oslo. Photo credit: Borre Hostland.

Figure 4. Le Nourrisson (L'enfant Malade), The Infant (The Sick Child). Jean-François Millet, France, 1858 Private collection.

Figure 5. L'Enfant malade. Eugène Carrière, France, 1885. Location and photo credit: Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Figure 6. Trouble. The Sick Child, Alice Havers, England, 1882. Location and photo credit: Southwark Art Collection.

Figure 7. El Niño Enfermo (The Sick Child). Francisco Arturo Michelena Castillo, Venezuela, 1886. Location and photo credit: National Museum of Venezuela.

Figure 8. Sick Child (Octavi, the artist’s son). Ricard Canals, Catalan,1903. Location and photo credit: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Spain.

Figure 9. The Sick Child. Trevor Duke, Papua New Guinea, 2024, ink and watercolour on paper.