The Waagepetersen Family

The children take centre stage in this image. They are gathered around a table, playing. The active children form a triangle, creating their own space full of playfulness, energy, and frolicking. Two other children look upon the goings-on with obvious curiosity, dreaming of participating themselves. The boy is drawing, holding up a drawing so that we can see that he has drawn a man poking out his tongue. It is thrown right in our faces as if by a teasing child. Around the playing children everything is firmly in order: The grandparents and an older sister look down upon them from pictures on the wall, the children's mother sits in quiet contemplation holding a child's stocking, and the nanny is holding the youngest of the flock on her arm. The image pre sents a specific social class; here, we see the absolute pinnacle of society depicted in an idealised manner; the children are presented on a silver platter in all their mischievous curiosity and vibrancy - an early precursor of the current trend towards parading children as trophies?