Room 33

This intriguing picture is Boilly’s painted imitation of a print after one of his own compositions (possibly now lost). Although Boilly was an expert in trompe l’oeil, it is unlikely that he intended to trick the viewer into thinking they are looking at an actual print because he does not include...

A weathered but picturesque watermill sits in a landscape that includes several idealised peasants engaged in tasks such as fishing, collecting water and washing clothes. Although this landscape has an air of decorative artificiality, even theatricality, Boucher includes sufficient detail to sugg...

This small and intimate painting is a cabinet picture intended for private domestic display rather than public exhibition. It illustrates a story from Metamorphoses, the epic poem by the Roman poet Ovid. The wood nymph Syrinx is chased by the god Pan to the river Ladon, where she begs one of the...

This painting is based on a story from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. When Hercules arrived at the River Euenus with his bride Dejanira, the centaur Nessus offered to carry her across the water while Hercules swam. Having reached the other side, Nessus attempted to run off with Dejanira, bu...

A young boy stands at a small wooden table fully absorbed in building a house out of playing cards. He is Jean-Alexandre Le Noir, whose father, Jean-Jacques Le Noir, was a furniture dealer and cabinet-maker, who commissioned several paintings from Chardin.The theme of a child building a house of...

A young child is being taught by an older girl, perhaps in her early teens, who is possibly an elder sister or another relation such as a cousin. Despite the picture’s title, this is a private lesson, probably taking place at home rather than at school. The younger child is most likely a boy, alt...

The Dutch patriot, Jacobus Blauw (1756–1829), played an important role in the foundation of the Batavian Republic in 1795. Although short-lived, it significantly contributed to the transformation of the Netherlands from a confederated structure into a democratic unitary state.Blauw and the artist...

Although the grandest of the many portraits of Madame de Pompadour, this is also the most naturalistic image of her, which avoids the rigid formality or mythological trappings of much court portraiture. The former mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour had become an international celebrity by...

This is an early work by Fragonard, which was presented to Louis XV at Versailles in 1753. It illustrates an episode from the classical story of Cupid and Psyche, retold in a book by Jean de La Fontaine. Having fallen in love with Psyche, Cupid only visited her at night, forbidding her to look at...

A wealthy family enjoy coffee beside a fountain. The mother offers a spoon from her cup to her little daughter. The father sits beside them holding the tray while their servant pours coffee from the pot into his cup. The painting is more likely to be a genre scene than a portrait of a particular...

Maria Maddalena Balletti, known as Manon Balletti, was the daughter of Antonio Giuseppe Balletti, an actor in the Comédie Italienne. Her brother Stefano, also an actor, was friends with the Venetian adventurer and author Giacomo Casanova, who declared his love for Manon. She broke off her existin...

Jacques Cazotte (1719–1792) is best known as the author of Le Diable amoureux (‘The Amorous Devil’), and other fantastical fiction. He was also a colonial administrator, a maker and supplier of fine wine, an amateur painter, a collector of old master paintings and a dabbler in counter-revolutiona...

Antoine Paris (1668–1733) was the son of a village innkeeper. With his brother Claude he helped provision French troops, eventually controlling all land and water transport supplying soldiers from Burgundy and the Auvergne. Antoine was appointed Royal Treasurer to Louis XIV in 1722, and this port...

This painting shows an episode from Ovid’s Art of Love (Book III: 83). The Roman goddess Diana would visit the shepherd Endymion every night while he slept. According to Cicero, Diana herself induced Endymion’s sleep so that she could enjoy him undisturbed. The subject was a popular one and had b...

This is the first of the series of seven illustrations of the story of Jason made by Jean-François de Troy as sketches for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works in Paris. The Gallery owns another sketch from the same series: The Capture of the Golden Fleece.According to the Roman poet Ovid’s M...

This is the third of a series of seven illustrations of the story of Jason made as sketches for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works in Paris. The Gallery also owns the first sketch from the series: Jason swearing Eternal Affection to Medea.Jason has set out to capture the Golden Fleece, and...

This is one of two paintings originally commissioned as a pair by Stanislas Augustus, King of Poland, in June or July 1772. However, concerned that the King was slow to pay, Vernet instead sold the pictures to the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India...

This is one of a pair of seascapes, originally commissioned on behalf of the King of Poland, that the British officer and East India Company official Lord Clive (known as Clive of India) bought from Vernet in 1773.Originally known as ‘Tempête’ (Storm), it depicts a rocky shoreline buffeted by a v...

This view is taken from the west bank of the Tiber looking towards the Castel Sant’Angelo. The specific event depicted has not been identified but river jousts were a popular official form of entertainment, and attracted large crowds of spectators.The flag at the stern of the boat at the left bea...

Alexandrine-Emilie Brongniart (1780–1847) was most likely eight years old when this engaging portrait of her was painted by the celebrated artist Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. Wearing an informal knotted scarf on her head, matching white dress and a translucent shawl around her shoulders, Emili...

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat is a signed copy by the artist of a very popular self portrait that she painted in 1782 and which is now in the collection of the baronne Edmond de Rothschild. The pose is deliberately modelled on Rubens’s Portrait of Susanna Lunden (?) (also in the National Gallery’s...

This picture is a fine example of Watteau’s work on an intimate scale. The title The Scale of Love (La Gamme d’Amour) comes from a print of it made several years after his death. It may be a reference to the musical scale, to the various stages of flirting and seduction, or to the music which fac...