one of the family

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:US) click to enlarge

That's the title of this luminous piece, dated 1880, by Frederick George Cotman (British; 1850-1920).  I'm sure no humble front room in any of those decades was ever as sundrenched and spotless as this.  That's not the point of such work: domestic genre art is about tugging the heartstrings toward how it could have, should have been.  By glossing up the best of our wishful memories, it may even prompt us to better behavior.  One of the Family received good notice when purchased by Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery in 1880, as it showed an example of kindness to animals in the treat being handed out to the horse.  Not every day one comes across a begging horse (do you see his fellow beggar?  Look at the young woman's lap).