Cornelia Presenting Her Children As Treasure Analysis

Initial Thoughts

As I viewed this art, the first thing I see is a mother and her children. The woman who is sitting down has a gold chain and other jewelry and looks as if she is trying to explain to the mother that those items are treasures. The mother is explaining to the woman that her treasures are her children. The woman sitting down must not have any children or she would understand why children are a mother’s greatest treasures.

Aspect(s) of Interest What I admire about this painting is the title, “Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Treasures”. I am a mother and my daughter means the world to me. There’s no amount of money, gold, or diamonds that could replace her. I admire how the artist, Angelica Kauffman, painted in a way to make the message clear to the viewers. She did not put detail into the background and used light and shading to keep the focus on the mother and children. The woman with the gold chains and jewelry has a puzzled looked on her face like she doesn’t not understand how the mother could think her children are worth more than her jewelry.

Historical Context

Angelica Kauffman is an artist from the “Age of Reason”, or the Age of Enlightenment. During this period, knowledge and intelligence was growing with the help of the invention of the Encyclopédie (MindEdge, Inc., 2016).

Cornelia was an influential woman to the Roman women and this painting that Angelica painted shows viewers who Cornelia is, that she is a mother who is devoted to her children. Angelica was famous for painting portraits, but also would paint mythological paintings like the Ancient Greeks and Romans, who painted pictures of the gods. Angelica studied the Ancient Greek and Roman art and used some of the same techniques to create this painting. Cornelia may not be a god, but she was a role model to Roman