  About the Artwork
  
  
  A mother holds her baby upright, smiling down while the child rests his tiny hand on hers. The dresses worn by mother and child meld together in the artist's fluid modeling of draped textiles. Sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh made a special practice of representing women as she saw them, stating that she aimed to "look for beauty in the every-day world, to catch the joy and swing of modern American life."

The affectionately rendered models for this work were Vonnoh's friend the painter Helen Savier DuMond (1872-1968) and Dumond's infant son Joseph (1903-1967). The title suggests that for the artist a modern woman and child deserved the same artistic reverence as a religious subject did for sculptors in earlier times.
  
  
  Title
  A Modern Madonna
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1904
  
  
  
  
  Makers
  
  
  Bessie Potter Vonnoh  (Artist)
  American, 1872-1955
  (Manufacturer)
  Roman Bronze Works, N.Y.
  founded 1899, active 19th-20th century
  
  
  
  Medium
  Bronze
  
  
  Dimensions
  Overall: 15 1/4 × 15 1/4 × 8 1/4 inches (38.7 × 38.7 × 21 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Sculpture
  
  
  Department
  American Art before 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Harman Booth
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  20.9
  
  
  Copyright
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