Munch completed the work after visiting the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris, where he saw a woman crying for her child with the disease.

The mother, whose hands and patterned skirt are especially prominent, has a tearful red face and sits on a bench in front of a green background.

The critical response to the painting was one of surprise; discussing sexually transmitted disease in public was unacceptable at the time.

[1] Edvard Munch was a Norwegian artist whose mother, sister and paternal grandfather had been affected by tuberculosis.

[2] Munch completed an oil painting on canvas in the late 1890s based on what he witnessed during a visit to the Hôpital Saint-Louis in Paris, one of three hospitals in that city that took in people with syphilis.

[5] The painting depicts a baby affected by congenital syphilis lying in the arms of its mother, who sits on a bench in front of a green background.

[6] Munch's own description of the image was as follows:[4] The woman bends over the child which is infected by the sins of the fathers.