Home Duty
Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover painting for May 20, 1916.
Also called "Salutation", the gang is going to play ball and big brother is stuck baby-sitting - taking his baby sister or brother for a walk in the carriage. He is prepared for the child's next feeding, with a baby bottle protruding from his jacket pocket.
Almost inevitably, Rockwell's first cover for The Saturday Evening Post centered on the world of small boys. Forty-one of the first fifty covers he painted for the Post featured children, and most of these children were boys. One suspects that the young man taking his baby sibling for an airing would prefer to be on his way to the sandlot. This cover is typical of the kind of thing other Post artists were supplying, yet it has Rockwell's personal touch. One can understand why the editors greeted the young artist's work with such enthusiasm.
See more Norman Rockwell prints.