Pieter de Hooch knew that nothing transcends time like a lice infestation. 

The Dutch name for this painting, "Moedertaak," means "Mother's Task.” I’m not sure what’s more depressing - the suggestion that the eternal role of a mother is to delouse her children or the memory of head lice ruining my sixth grade dance. Tragic.

The painting’s extensive detail brings an even greater intimacy to this timeless mother-daughter moment. I zeroed in on the black piece of furniture in the right foreground, which turned out to be a seventeenth century potty-chair. Who knew that toilet training could be so austere? There’s also the strange cat-like creature on the lower right, which further adds to the image of domestic, lice-ridden bliss. This cat gracefully draws our eye towards De Hooch’s signature ‘through-view’ of the sun streaming through a window in the next room.

De Hooch himself fathered seven children, so he probably had more than a bit of familiarity with lice. Perhaps naming his painting “Mother’s Task” served as homage (or a very passive aggressive nudge) to his beloved wife.  

Lice-related paintings must have been in high demand back in the day-- Interior with a Mother Delousing Her Child's Hair was graciously paid for by one of the richest men in the Netherlands, a Dutch banker named Adriaan van der Hoop. Fortunately for the City of Amsterdam, van der Hoop was an avid art collector and left over 250 paintings to the city upon his death (He was also a rare plant collector, but plants don’t really transcend time the way that paintings and lice do).