Young Mother 1891 Paris oil on canvas. The young mother shows the artists wife Topsy and their first child Ralph, who was born in 1890. Pale and slim after a long winter spent in their one-room apartment that was divided by a curtain into sleeping and eating quarters, Topsy gently waves a palm fan over the outstretched arms of her baby son. The subject of the mother and child has its origins in the depiction of he Madonna and Child and continued to be a popular subject for 19th C artists attempting to record their personal and secular experiences with tenderness and conviction.