By Theresa Rézeau 

History has always been generous with monuments.

We build them for kings. We build them for generals. We build them for presidents, inventors and artists. Their names are carved into stone, their statues stand in public squares, and their achievements fill the pages of history.

Far fewer monuments exist for the women who first taught those people how to become human.

Every year, Mother's Day offers us an opportunity to correct that imbalance, if only for a moment. In the United States, many African countries and much of Europe, it is celebrated on the second Sunday in May. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, it is observed earlier, on the fourth Sunday of Lent. The dates may differ, but the instinct remains remarkably consistent: to pause, however briefly, and honour the women whose love, sacrifice and quiet strength have shaped our lives.

Long before flowers, greeting cards and family lunches became part of the tradition, artists had already recognised that motherhood was more than a private relationship. It was one of the hidden forces upon which every civilisation depends.

Few paintings express this more profoundly than The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c. 1503-1519) by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), now in the collection of the Louvre Museum.

At first glance, the painting appears serene. Saint Anne sits calmly behind her daughter Mary, who reaches lovingly towards the Christ Child as He gently embraces a lamb. The figures are bound together by a graceful rhythm of movement, each leaning naturally towards the next. There is no sense of grandeur or spectacle. No crown, no throne, no battlefield. Instead, Leonardo invites us into something infinitely quieter: the intimacy of three generations.

Yet within this seemingly ordinary family scene lies one of the most extraordinary ideas in the history of art.

The painting suggests that the future of civilisation is never born in a throne room. It is first nurtured in a family.

Leonardo does not simply paint a mother and child. He paints a grandmother, a mother and a child together. Saint Anne, Mary and Christ form a living chain of inheritance, reminding us that no life begins in isolation. Every generation receives something from the one before it and, knowingly or unknowingly, passes something to the one that follows.

It is a simple truth that history often forgets.

We remember emperors because they conquered kingdoms. We remember inventors because they changed technology. We remember artists because they transformed the way we see the world. Yet before any of them became remarkable, they first belonged to a family. Before they stood before crowds or changed history, someone taught them to speak, to trust, to persevere, to forgive and to hope.

Ask yourself how many mothers history remembers by name.

The answer tells us as much about history as it does about motherhood.

This is why the painting continues to resonate more than five centuries after it was completed. While its subject is deeply rooted in Christian tradition, its message extends far beyond religious belief.

Every civilisation begins long before its history is written. Before there are governments, discoveries or masterpieces, there are children learning what it means to trust, to forgive, to persevere and to love. The future is shaped there first.

The composition itself carries this idea. Every gesture flows naturally from one figure to the next. Saint Anne watches over Mary with gentle confidence. Mary instinctively reaches towards her son. Christ stretches towards the lamb, a quiet symbol foreshadowing sacrifice, compassion and the path that lies ahead. Nothing feels isolated. Every movement belongs to another. Leonardo transforms affection into architecture, suggesting that love itself is something passed from generation to generation.

Almost every person who stands before this painting has occupied one of its places. We have all been children. Many have become parents. Some have known the quiet wisdom of grandparents. Others carry the grief of a mother no longer here. Leonardo's masterpiece does not simply depict one holy family; it reflects the universal rhythm of human life. The faces belong to biblical figures, but the relationships belong to us all.

Museums preserve crowns, sceptres and swords. Public squares honour rulers, generals and revolutionaries. History records the victories of those who stood at the centre of events. Yet behind every celebrated life stands another story that is seldom told: the patient formation of character, the quiet discipline of love and the unseen acts of sacrifice that made that life possible.

The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is more than a devotional image. It reminds us that the foundations of civilisation are laid long before civilisation begins to celebrate its heroes.

As we celebrate Mother's Day, we rightly give thanks for the women who have loved, guided and sacrificed for us. History remembers those who changed the world. Mother's Day reminds us to remember those who first changed them.