Childhood

Children have appeared in art for as long as there has been art, but the way they are seen has changed a great deal. We follow the child from ancient sculpture and the medieval Christ Child, through Velázquez’s infantas and Chardin’s children at play, to Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Carl Larsson and the 20th century’s interest in children’s own pictures.

• Playful gods and a holy child – antiquity and the Middle Ages
• Putti and princes – the Renaissance
• Infantas and street urchins – the Baroque
• Play and innocence – the 18th century
• Mothers and children – the 19th century
• The century of the child – the Nordic countries
• Children at play in China and Japan
• The child’s eye – the 20th century and today