Familienbild (Eine Mutter mit spielenden Kindern an einem Springbrunnen)

The painting combines visual quotations from earlier art with allusions to Feuerbach’s own work. The female figure recalls the woman personifying earthly love in Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love, a copy of which by Franz Lenbach forms part of the Schack collection. Rabbits, symbols of fertility, and fading flowers, evocations of transience, suggest that the image of a mother with her children is to be understood as an allegory of life.