Childhood enshrined

The Lullaby by Joseph Noel Paton portrays the artist's wife, Margaret Gourlay Paton (1832-1900), with their infant son, Diarmid Noel Paton (1859 -1928), asleep on her lap. Although the painting was widely exhibited during Paton's lifetime, it was never sold and has remained in the possession of his descendants. Since 2005, it has been on loan to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, where it is currently on display in the exhibition 'Heroes and Heroines: The Victorian Age'. Paton was one of the foremost artists in mid-19th-century Scotland, but his work is understudied and further scholarship is requited to appraise the full extent and complexity of his production as a painter, sculptor, poet and antiquarian. The purpose of this article is to present a detailed study which establishes the painting's significance within Paton's oeuvre, and examines his visualisation of Diarmid in relation to the cultural construction of childhood during the 1860s.