Nicolas Lancret | The Four Times of Day: Afternoon | NG5869

The Four Times of Day: Afternoon

Nicolas Lancret

This is the third in Lancret’s series of paintings The Four Times of Day. A gentleman and three ladies are gathered around a tric-trac table in a woodland glade. Tric-trac was a game similar to backgammon. The gentleman and a lady are playing at the table – she has just thrown the dice from her horn cup and has a double, which carries the potential for extra points. She appears to have moved her scoring peg to the fourth or fifth hole (the equivalent of 48 or 60 points), while the man’s scoring peg is only on the second hole (24 points). The gentleman looks back over his shoulder at one of the ladies and gestures to the counters on the board, perhaps to ask advice on his next move or appeal to the rules.

The series of paintings was etched and engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III and presented to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1741.

Afternoon (L'Après-Dinée) is the third in Lancret’s series of paintings The Four Times of Day. A gentleman and three ladies, who resemble those in Midday but are perhaps now a little older, are gathered around a tric-trac table in a woodland glade. Tric-trac was a game similar to backgammon. It may be only a coincidence but Lancret’s painting was made at about the same time as the publication in 1739 of the first edition of Soumille’s book Le Grand Trictrac, which describes the rules and techniques of the game.

Gaming was enjoyed both in the afternoons and the evenings in affluent French circles at this time. However, games of luck including gambling were prohibited other than in private houses and on a moderate scale. Tric-trac was a game of skill rather than merely luck, so it did not fall into this category.

The gentleman and a lady are playing at the table – the lady has just thrown the dice from her horn cup and has a double, which carries the potential for extra points. She appears to have moved her scoring peg to the fourth or fifth hole (the equivalent of 48 or 60 points), while the man’s scoring peg is only on the second hole (24 points). The gentleman looks back over his shoulder at one of the ladies and gestures to the counters on the board, perhaps to ask advice on his next move or to question the rules.

The series of paintings was etched and engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III and presented to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1741. The verse on Larmessin’s print of this painting translates as: ‘This game demands study and luck / Love also depends on chance and its cares: / When there’s an argument in a case like this, one seeks witnesses / In other circumstances three’s a crowd.’ The verses also suggest a parallel between a game of tric-trac and a love affair. The painting continues the themes of time and love expressed in the earlier pictures of the series.

Lancret made adjustments to the composition during painting, possibly adding the lady in pink last of all.

Key facts

Artist	Nicolas Lancret
Artist dates	1690 - 1743
Full title	The Four Times of Day: Afternoon
Series	The Four Times of Day
Date made	1739-41
Medium and support	Oil on copper
Dimensions	28.8 x 36.7 cm
Acquisition credit	Bequeathed by Sir Bernard Eckstein, 1948
Inventory number	NG5869
Location in Gallery	Not on display

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The Four Times of Day

We do not know whether someone commissioned The Four Times of Day: Morning, Midday, Afternoon and Evening or whether Lancret produced them speculatively in the hope of making money from the engravings, since series of prints were popular with the public. Painting series of pictures was something of a speciality for Lancret – he had already produced The Four Seasons in about 1719, The Four Elements by August 1732, and The Four Ages of Man (also in the National Gallery’s collection) by July 1735. The Four Times of Day was complete by February 1741, when the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin III presented proofs of his engravings of them to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris.

This series was painted on copper, which allowed for the fine and detailed brushwork we see here in the hands and faces of the principal figures, where Lancret made numerous small adjustments to produce particular expressions and gestures.

We do not know whether somone commissioned Lancret to paint this series of pictures on copper of The Four Times of Day: Morning, Midday, Afternoon and Evening. He began them sometime before September 1739, when Morning was exhibited at the Salon. Painting series of pictures was something of a speciality for Lancret – he had already produced The Four Seasons in about 1719, The Four Elements by August 1732, and The Four Ages of Man by July 1735. The set of The Four Times of Day was complete by February 1741, when the engraver Nicolas de Larmessin III presented proofs of his engravings of them to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris (The Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture). The absence of any owner or patron’s name on Larmessin’s engravings suggests that Lancret may have painted the pictures speculatively with the aim of making money from the engravings, as there was a long-established taste for buying prints in series. Many of Lancret’s sets of paintings were the subject of financially successful sets of engravings.

Lancret may have known Boucher’s series of The Four Times of Day, as the activities in Boucher’s Morning, Midday and Evening show some similarity with those in Lancret’s paintings. However, Lancret’s pictures are more narrative-based and story-like than those of Boucher.

Lancret painted on small copper panels on other occasions, for example The Birdcatchers, probably of 1738 and its pendant Pastoral Revels, which is dated 1738 (both now in the Wallace Collection, London). A silvery metal coating was applied to the panels before painting, perhaps in an effort to stop the copper from corroding. Painting on copper would have allowed for fine and detailed brushwork, but why Lancret should have used copper for only a brief period of his career – around 1738 – is unknown. In these paintings he paid great attention to detail in the hands and faces of the principal figures, and made numerous small adjustments to produce particular expressions and gestures.

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The Four Times of Day

More paintings by Nicolas Lancret