Rococo

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, otherwise known as Madame de Pompadour, was the mistress of King Louis XV, as well as a prominent patron of Francois Boucher. Unlike the many other mistresses of the king, Madame de Pompadour continued to be a presence at the court by creating a cordial relationship with the Queen, by accompanying the King on hunting trips and social gatherings, and commissioning paintings of herself, which hid her aging looks. Although she did commission works from other artists, the majority of her portraits were done by Boucher.

Boucher’s popularity during his career was matched only by his artistic versatility. In addition to theatre costumes and set designs, tapestries, and designs and decorations for court celebrations, he also dabbled in gouache. This piece is one of only three gouache paintings by the artist. This piece, which was probably produced as an independent work, rather than as a study for a painting, bears a striking resemblance to another one of his paintings, Venus on the Waves. Boucher was a master at depicting idyllic classical scenes, and in this one we see his adeptness at portraying the mythical scene of impassive Venus, surrounded by nymphs and tritons, all paying tribute to the goddess of love.

In still lifes, genre scenes, and the occasional portrait, Chardin's skill at rendering the visual and tactile qualities of simple objects won him the admiration of critics like Diderot. In this small still life, Chardin portrayed a modest subject--three walnuts, four peaches, two bunches of grapes, and a pewter mug--but gave the objects monumentality by arranging them in pure geometric groupings and concentrating on their basic forms. He suggested the objects' various textures and substances through the play of light across surfaces and successive applications of paint. In this way, Chardin conveyed the fuzzy skin of the peaches, the hard, brittle shell of the walnuts, the translucence of the grapes, and the heavy, cold exterior of the pewter mug.

The painting appears, after cleaning, to be an autograph replica of a picture, the original of which was painted in Brussels in 1782 in free imitation of Rubens's 'Chapeau de Paille', which Vigée Le Brun had seen in Antwerp. It was exhibited in Paris in 1782 at the Salon de la Correspondance. Vigée Le Brun's original is recorded in a private collection in France.