Full title | The Four Ages of Man: Adolescence |
---|---|
Artist | Nicolas Lancret |
Artist dates | 1690 - 1743 |
Series | The Four Ages of Man |
Date made | about 1733-4 |
Medium and support | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 34.3 x 45.3 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Lt-Col John Harvey Ollney, 1837 |
Inventory number | NG102 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This is the second of Lancret’s series of paintings depicting The Four Ages of Man and represents Adolescence (L'Adolescence).
A young lady stands in the centre of the painting in a grand circular room with tall windows. She admires herself in the mirror held up by a young page while her hair is decorated with bows and flowers. She is so absorbed in her own image that she does not notice her wealthy admirer has been distracted by a pretty young lady adjusting her stocking. He opens his hands as though appealing to her, while she turns and looks up at him with a coquettish glance. The French word for stocking, un bas, in eighteenth-century slang also meant female genitalia. Her revealing dress further emphasises the painting’s subject of sexual desire. The radiating pattern on the floor illustrates the idea that the gaze of a beautiful woman is like the rays of the sun.
This is the second of Lancret’s series of paintings The Four Ages of Man and represents Adolescence (L‘Adolescence).
A young lady stands in the centre of the painting in a grand circular room with tall windows. She admires herself in the mirror held up by a young page while her hair is decorated with bows and flowers. She is so absorbed in her own image that she does not notice her wealthy admirer has been distracted by a pretty young lady adjusting her stocking. He opens his hands as though appealing to her, while she turns and looks up at him with a coquettish glance. The French word for stocking, un bas, in eighteenth-century slang also meant female genitalia. Her revealing dress further emphasises the painting’s subject of sexual desire. The radiating pattern on the floor illustrates the idea that the gaze of a beautiful woman is like the rays of the sun.
Lancret had his compositions copied by leading engravers. The Seasons, The Four Ages of Man, The Four Times of Day and The Elements were all engraved in order to make as much money as possible from them in printed as well as painted form.
The set was engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III and announced in the July 1735 issue of the Mercure de France. The verse inscribed on the engraving of this picture roughly translate as: ’Since her rays illuminate reason for us / she causes pleasure and homour to be acquired / One tries to compare to her, one tries to please; And our happiness depends on the looks of others.' Most of the numerous painted copies are also in reverse, showing they were copied from the prints. A set of large wall tapestries based on Larmessin’s prints was made at the Aubusson tapestry works around 1745–50.
There is a chalk study that shows the three standing women in The British Museum, London. A drawing, possibly for the woman adjusting her stocking, was formerly in the Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris (stolen between 1914 and 1921, so whereabouts currently unknown) – although the catalogue description says she was facing to her left rather than right. There are also two related studies by Lancret of female faces in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans.
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The Four Ages of Man: Adolescence
The Four Ages of Man
Lancret treats the traditional subject of The Four Ages of Man as a series of contemporary genre scenes – Childhood, Adolescence, Youth and Old Age.
In Childhood (L'Enfance), a group of wealthy children play boisterous games in an open-air loggia watched by their nurse and governess. In Adolescence (L’Adolescence), a young woman admires herself in a mirror while her hair is decorated with ribbons and flowers. Instead of depicting the third age as a time of maturity and showing a middle-aged married couple, Lancret paints several pairs of lovers in a woody glade, and entitles the picture Youth (La Jeunesse). In Old Age (La Vieillesse), he dispenses with the usual depiction of old people warming themselves indoors before an open fire to take the scene outdoors.
The set was engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III in 1735. Most of the numerous painted copies were copied from the prints and are also shown in reverse.
Lancret treats the traditional subject of The Four Ages of Man as a series of contemporary genre scenes. The paintings represent Childhood, Adolescence, Youth and Old Age. Lancret certainly knew the series of The Four Ages of Man painted by Jean Raoux for Philippe de Vendôme around 1714–15, and although it has been suggested that Lancret’s series was inspired by it, overall the differences are greater than the similarities.
In Childhood (L'Enfance), a group of wealthy children play boisterous games in an open-air loggia watched by their nurse and governess. Lancret’s Childhood is closely related to that of Raoux – there are similarities in the architectural background, the balustrade on the right, the frieze-like arrangement of the children and the motif of the governess teaching from an open book.
In Adolescence (L’Adolescence), a young woman admires herself in a mirror while her hair is decorated with ribbons and flowers. Such is the young woman’s absorption in her own reflection that she has not noticed that the wealthy nobleman beside her has turned to talk to a young woman coquettishly adjusting her stocking.
The third painting in the series is less conventional. Instead of showing his third age as a time of maturity and depicting a middle-aged married couple, Lancret paints several pairs of lovers in a woody glade and entitles the picture Youth (La Jeunesse). In the foreground, two archers are engaged in a game of pape-guay, in which they shoot at an imitation bird placed on top of a long pole. The two apparently unattached women in the background might be read as the targets for the arrows aimed by the archers, as arrows are associated with Cupid, the god of love.
In Old Age (La Vieillesse), Lancret dispenses with the usual depiction of old people warming themselves indoors before an open fire to take the scene outdoors. A young woman rejects an old man’s advances while an old woman spins and another sleeps.
Since all of the paintings are influenced by earlier prints it is not possible to determine the order in which Lancret painted them. However, the close connection of Childhood (L’Enfance) with the version by Raoux suggests it was tackled first. It is likely that Lancret worked on the series between 1733 and 1734. Two figures in Lancret’s Dance between a Pavilion and a Fountain of 1733 (Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin), also appear at the far left of his Childhood (L’Enfance).
Lancret had his paintings copied by leading engravers. The Seasons, The Ages of Man, The Times of Day and The Elements were all engraved so he could make as much money as possible from them in printed as well as painted form.
The set was engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III and announced in the July 1735 issue of the Mercure de France. Most of the numerous painted copies are also in reverse, showing that they were copied from the prints. A set of large wall tapestries based on Larmessin’s prints was made at the Aubusson tapestry works around 1745–50.



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