A major international exhibition exploring the enduring image of motherhood across cultures and centuries opens today at the Humayun’s Tomb Museum. Titled One Mother, Many Mother Tongues, the exhibition brings together a wide-ranging collection of artworks and objects that trace how maternal figures have been imagined, venerated, and transformed across geographies and belief systems.
On view at the Havells Gallery from 23 June to 8 August 2026, the exhibition is curated by Naman P. Ahuja and Andrea Anastasio, and is supported by key cultural institutions from India and Italy, including the Ministry of Culture (Government of India), the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the Embassy of Italy in New Delhi.
At the heart of the exhibition lies a compelling curatorial premise: that the image of the mother and child constitutes one of the most persistent and universal visual narratives in human history. Moving across temporal and cultural landscapes, the show juxtaposes figures such as the ancient Roman goddess Mater Matuta, the Buddhist deity Hariti, and the Renaissance Madonna, revealing striking iconographic and symbolic continuities.
Among the highlights are votive sculptures of Mater Matuta from central Italy (6th–3rd centuries BCE), which depict seated maternal figures holding children. These works extend beyond intimate representations of care, embodying broader ideas of civic regeneration and cosmic renewal. In parallel, representations of Hariti from South and Central Asia present a transformed maternal figure, once a child-stealing demon, later reimagined as a protector—whose iconography echoes similar formal and symbolic concerns.
The exhibition also features Renaissance interpretations, including works attributed to Sandro Botticelli, where the Madonna and Child motif acquires a heightened psychological and emotional depth. Here, the sacred is rendered through intimacy, gesture, and quiet contemplation, marking a shift from archetypal representation to inward spiritual experience.
Rather than proposing direct historical lineages, One Mother, Many Mother Tongues constructs a comparative framework that foregrounds resonances across cultures. Through sculptures, paintings, and carefully curated visual dialogues, it examines recurring motifs such as the seated maternal form, the symbolic role of the child, and the maternal body as a site bridging the earthly and the transcendent.
By situating Renaissance art within a longer continuum that includes ancient Mediterranean and Asian traditions, the exhibition challenges conventional art historical boundaries and invites viewers to consider motherhood as a shared, evolving archetype.
Open to the public from 23rd June, the exhibition offers a timely reflection on motherhood as both a deeply personal and universally resonant experience—one that continues to shape cultural memory, identity, and artistic expression across the world.
Image courtesy: Embassy of Italy in New Delhi.
Contributor
