Full title | The Four Times of Day: Evening |
---|---|
Artist | Nicolas Lancret |
Artist dates | 1690 - 1743 |
Series | The Four Times of Day |
Date made | 1739-41 |
Medium and support | Oil on copper |
Dimensions | 28.8 x 36.8 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Sir Bernard Eckstein, 1948 |
Inventory number | NG5870 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This is the final scene in Lancret’s series of paintings The Four Times of Day. By the silvery light of a spring or summer moon a group of women are bathing together in a woodland pond. One of the women standing in the pond is about to splash another who is lying on the ground, apparently testing the water with her foot. The other lady in the water covers her breast with her chemise and looks to her right as though she has heard a noise among the trees. One lady rubs her foot, apparently about to descend from the flat-bottomed boat, while another wrings out water from the hem of her shift.
Evening is in poor condition. Nicolas de Larmessin III’s print after the painting, presented to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1741, suggests that it was once much more animated and finely detailed.
This is the final scene in the series of paintings The Four Times of Day by Lancret. The painting was etched and engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III as part of his series The Four Hours of Day, completed by February 1741.
By the silvery light of a spring or summer moon a group of women are bathing together in a woodland pond. The secluded bosky setting makes them look like the moon goddess Diana and her nymphs. Two of the women stand in the pond up to their calves. One is about to splash another lady who is lying on the ground with one foot in the pond, apparently testing the water. The other lady standing in the water covers her breast with her chemise and looks to her right as though she has heard a noise among the trees. One lady rubs her foot, apparently about to get out from the flat-bottomed boat, while another in the boat wrings out water from the hem of her shift.
Attached to the boat is a cane or metal framework, which could be draped with cloth to provide a degree of privacy for its occupants. Lancret would have known such boats called toues that were moored in the Seine. They were covered by a large awning and had a small ladder enabling occupants to climb down into the water to swim or simply to stand in the river, supported by underwater platforms. When the picture was painted, it was still believed that water penetrated the body and so affected its organs and functions, which may explain why the women are entering the pond so cautiously even though it is evidently very shallow.
Evening is in poor condition. Larmessin’s print suggests that it was once much more animated and finely detailed. The ladies are all bathing almost entirely covered up in a modest scene that avoids any public indecency. It is possible that Lancret himself covered the previously exposed breasts of the figure seated in the foreground, and of the one standing immediately behind her. However he left exposed the breast of the lady who is furthest away.
Lancret painted a number of scenes showing women bathing – the woman in the background here also appears in his L’Eté of about 1722–5 (Hermitage, St Petersburg), Women bathing of about 1718 (Wallace Collection, London) and Les Plaisirs du Bain (Louvre, Paris) probably of the 1730s. The modest gesture of this frequently repeated stooping figure may have had its origin in the Venus de’ Medici (Uffizi, Florence), an antique marble statue well known in France though prints and through copies made in marble and bronze for Louis XIV.
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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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