Mother and Child

A woman sits breast-feeding her child, reading a book as she does so. Or is there more going on here?
For various reasons this painting is considered to be a depiction of the Virgin and the infant Jesus. Firstly, at this time a simple genre scene showing a mother and child was not yet a subject being painted in Haarlem. Moreover, elements from various traditional depictions of the Madonna are combined here: the veil (virginity), reading, the giving of the breast. Even the wooden fence behind Mary has a significance in this context – it stands for the poor conditions in which Mary lived. In this painting the Roman Catholic De Grebber made a devotional work that is of a piece with the Catholic art of the time.