The Mother of Moses
Artist: Simeon Solomon (British, 1840–1905
Date: 1860
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware, United States
Description
Moses's mother Jochabed is seen here holding her infant, the baby Moses, before consigning him to the river Nile in the wicker basket, which the baby's elder sister, Miriam, has under her arm. Jochabed has kept the child hidden but now accepts that she must act more drastically if he is to escape the Pharoah's edict that baby boys should be taken from their families and drowned: "when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink" (Exodus 2,3).
Solomon has tried to present the heart-breaking moment with Pre-Raphaelite accuracy. This included using the Jamaican-born Fanny Eaton as his model — the baby and the girl are likely to have been her own children.