Gesina's 1651 drawing of a woman with two children in a carrying basket

Thanks to Gesina ter Borch, an artist of the Dutch Golden Age, for an idea on how to save on a pram.

Gesina drew the woman with two children in a carrying basket in 1651, when she herself was about 20 years old.

Own up, whom did these realities of seventeenth-century European life remind of the Russian fairy tales "Masha and the Bear" and "Finist the Bright Falcon"? True, Masha rode in a basket with pies, and Finist gave an old woman a ride, but all the same we have begun to forget the old means of conveyance: the back of one's neighbour.

And yes, how sweetly the children in the basket embrace one another!