Two women with a cradle, one of them winged

Symbolist and visionary artist par excellence, Carlos Schwabe gained great renown at the turn of the century when he participated in the 1900 World Fair in Paris. He was awarded the Gold Medal despite a decreasing number of commissions. In the present work he turned to the depiction of a more bucolic world, more serene than that evoked in his earlier, tormented compositions. According to Jean-David Jumeau Lafond, the message is ‘the delicate poetry of a somewhat nostalgic maternity, magnified by the charm of a protective garden’ (J.-D. Jumeau-Lafond, Carlos Schwabe. Symboliste et visionnaire, Paris, 1994, p. 120). A watercolour of the same subject, in which the mother stands alone in front of the cradle was in the collection of Félix Marcilhac, while a version executed in pastel but stronger in colour is recorded in the collection of Gérard Lévy, both in the form of an architectural pendant (ibid., p. 116-177, ill.).