Family portrait (A mother with children playing at a fountain)

Family Portrait (A Mother with Children Playing at a Fountain) of 1866, in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, reflects Feuerbach's sustained effort in Rome to reconcile his German academic training with the monumental figure tradition of the Italian Renaissance. The fountain, the children, and the mother suggest a scene drawn from ancient Roman daily life or perhaps from the idyllic pastoral world he associated with classical Mediterranean culture. Feuerbach was deeply influenced by his years in Rome — he wrote that Rome alone made life bearable for him — and he consistently sought to recover the sensory and human richness of the antique world in his paintings. The canvas was likely exhibited at one of the German shows where Feuerbach's large-scale Roman subjects attracted critical attention and found collectors among the Munich and Schack circle.

The composition is structured around the vertical figure of the mother and the horizontal dispersal of the children, creating a stable classical pyramid with natural play disrupting the geometry at its edges. Feuerbach's palette here is warm and sun-drenched, with the white fabric and splashing water providing luminous accents across the canvas.