Maternity is a new exhibition based on images of the mother and child from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland.

It will open at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery from 10 November 2007 and will be on display until 12 January 2008.

The exhibition includes a selection of eleven very different images and will explore the theme of motherhood in art, and consider how it has been interpreted and re-interpreted by artists over the past 500 years.

The works on show will range from the early Renaissance to the present day, and will include works by Sandro Botticelli, George Romney, William Quiller Orchardson, and Pablo Picasso.

Maternity will feature one of the most touching examples of the theme in Western painting, Botticelli’s fifteenth-century masterpiece The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child.  Acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland in 2000, this is the earliest work in the display. The most recent work on show is Moyna Flannigan’s challenging painting Just like Daddy.

Other highlights of Maternity will include Domenichino’s Adoration of the Shepherds of 1606-8; a Mother and Child from Picasso’s pre-Cubist ‘Blue Period’; and Christine Borland’s Twin, Hand-Made, Child-Birth Demonstration Model of 1997.

Maternity is presented in partnership with Highland 2007 and The Highland Council and reflects the National Galleries of Scotland’s active involvement with art and culture in the Highland region.  This partnership underlines one of the Galleries’ core aims – making the national art collection accessible to the widest possible number of visitors.

Inverness Museum and Art Gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm.  Admission is free.