A Lullaby
Artist: John Henry Lorimer (Scottish, 1856-1936)
Date: 1889
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Description
This study of a nurse and her sleeping charge was painted in a tower of Lorimer’s home in Kellie Castle, Pittenween. It depicts his baby nephew, Thomas Chalmers, son of the Chief Justice of British Guiana and his minder, Joanna Herbert from Demerara. By 1889, the year in which this celebrated and widely exhibited painting was made, thinking on childcare had greatly modernized. The practice of swaddling was abandoned. Now able to move freely, babies no longer needed constant rocking to distract them from their discomfort. The new cult of fresh air meant that nurses were urged to keep windows open even in freezing weather.
