Chapter VII: English, Eighteenth Century 329–428 (9)

In 1718 Nattier was received at the Académie and, thenceforth, devoted himself to portraiture. In 1724 he married Mademoiselle de la Roche, daughter of an old _mousquetaire_ of the King; and it was not long before he became official painter of the court and, in consequence, the most fashionable portrait-painter in France.

Nattier was made assistant professor of the Académie in 1745 and full professor in 1752. Every year brought him more fame and more honors until his death in Paris in 1766.

Nattier depicts the delicate, charming, and aristocratic beauty of the early Louis XV period and has the gift of expressing also grace and alluring qualities. Louis XV had Nattier make replicas of many of the court portraits most pleasing to him, which he sent to European Courts; and this explains how it is that so many splendid Nattiers are hanging to-day in European galleries.

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_

MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON

--_Jean Marc Nattier_]

Nattier has a unique place as the painter of beautiful women, yet, although he painted individuals, his work, taken as a whole, presents the French Society woman of the Eighteenth Century with her peculiar charm, elegance, and _finesse_, appearing in his portraits as she really was,--experienced, flexible, high-bred, gay, witty, and accomplished, graceful in manner and in speech, perfect in the arts of the toilet and in dress, conscious of her charm, and tactful, polished, and fascinating in society.

LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION AS FLORA.

_Jean Marc Nattier_
(_1685–1766_).

_Collection of
Mr. A. W. Erickson._

This masterpiece is also known as the “Chaponay Nattier,” from having been long in the Collection of the Marquis de Chaponay in Paris. Previously the picture graced the Collection of la Comtesse Armand née Gontoud-Biron and subsequently that of M. Nicolas Ambatielos in London. Many critics regard _La Marquise de Baglion_ as the finest French portrait of the Eighteenth Century. Its first appearance in public was at the Salon of 1746 and it was shown in the Paris Exhibition of the One Hundred Masterpieces in 1892 (No. 28) and in the Paris Exhibition of the One Hundred Portraits of Women of the French and English Schools in 1909 (No. 85).

_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_

LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION

--_Jean Marc Nattier_]

The picture (53⅛ × 41¼ inches) is signed and dated 1746, hence it was shown as soon as it was finished. The subject of the picture, Angélique Louise Sophie d’Allouville de Louville was born Feb. 10, 1710, daughter of Charles Augustin d’Allouville, Marquis de Louville, Gentleman-in-waiting to the King of Spain, Lieutenant-General of his armies and Governor-General of Courtray. Her mother was Hyacinthe Sophie de Bechameil de Nointel. On June 10, 1733, Angélique Louise Sophie was married to Pierre François Marie de Baglion, Comte de la Salle. After twenty-three years of marriage the Marquise de Baglion died in 1756. Her only daughter, Françoise Sophie Scholastique de Baglion (who was married to Denis Auguste Grimoard de Beauvoir, Marquis du Roure, Colonel of the Grenadiers of France of Saintonge, of Dauphine, and later brigadier), was lady-in-waiting to the Dauphine (Marie Antoinette), and was a great friend of Madame de Pompadour, whom she usually accompanied on her visits to Choisy.

In this exquisite picture, La Marquise de Baglion, an unusually beautiful woman, who has great intelligence in her face, as well as beauty, appears in a very _décolleté_ dress, which shows her dazzling neck and shoulders. Her aristocratic hand, long and beautifully shaped, lightly holds a blue scarf--“Nattier blue”--filled with lovely flowers. Flowers are as nearly important as the Goddess of Flowers herself; and, consequently, Nattier has shown himself here the equal of any painter who specialized in flowers.

The picture was much talked of in its day at Versailles; in the _boudoirs_; at the toilet of the marquise; and at the _petits soupers_ of the King, Louis XV. Many poets have sung its praises. One of the latest and best tributes is by Roger Milès called a _Madrigal for a Portrait of the Marquise de Baglion painted by Nattier_. In reading it we cannot help regretting that the beautiful Flora could not have read these sympathetic verses:

_MADRIGAL_

(_Pour un Portrait de la Marquise de Baglion peint par Nattier_)

_Dès le matin, dans la rosée, au fond du parc,
La Marquise s’en fut, pour saluer l’Aurore,
Et les cerfs inquiets qui sommeillaient encore,
Pour Diane la prenant, des yeux cherchaient son arc._

_Mais elle n’était pas la Déesse farouche
Et, si parfois ses yeux ont pu lancer ces traits,
Ses victimes devaient y trouver des attraits,
Tant le sourire avait de douceur sur sa bouche._

_Elle allait simplement, fière de sa beauté,
Humilier les fleurs écloses pour lui plaire,
Sachant leur jalousie aimable et sans colère,
Ames où des parfums chantent la volupté._

_Et voici que ses mains cruelles et câlines
Ont fait leur choix parmi la fraicheur des buissons,
Pour les encourager, de leurs nids, les pinsons
Raillaient à plein gosier les branches orphelines._

_Et de ses belles mains déborde son butin.
Sa cueillette fut bonne, et ses touffes fleuries.
Suffiraient à parer la mousse des prairies
Quant la Nature dit sa prière au Matin._

_Sur un banc, souriante, elle s’est reposée,
Une rose retient l’épaulette qui fuit,
Et le Zephyr qui passe en balayant la nuit,
S’attarde à la splendour de sa gorge rosée._

_L’étoffe la possède entre ses plis légers,
Des joyaux précieux se serrent à sa hanche,
Et, sur un chiffonné de mousseline blanche,
Ses genoux par un tissu bleu sont assiégés._

_Mais un charme divin s’epanouait en elle,
Et l’on tremble, en voyant son pur rayonnement,
Que Dieu pour nous ravir à cet enchantement,
Ne fasse palpiter à son épaule ... une aile._

LA CAMARGO.

_Nicolas Lancret_
(_1690–1743_).

_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._

This painting came into this country directly from the Collection of the Emperor of Germany, having long hung in Potsdam Palace, “Sans Souci,” near Berlin. It was originally in the Collection of the Prince de Carignan in Paris, from whom it was acquired in 1744 by the Count von Rothenburg, Prussian Ambassador, for Frederick the Great (1712–1786), to adorn his castle at Rheinsberg.

The picture is in oils on canvas (30 × 41¾ inches). We have here a typical scene of French Eighteenth Century life, laid in a beautiful park of emerald swards, lovely trees, and graceful foliage, a “terminal” figure of a Muse in the middle distance, and a fountain tossing its spray at the extreme right. Mademoiselle Camargo and her partner occupy the left centre of the picture dancing to music played by a small orchestra on the left. Seated and standing around them beneath the trees are groups of interested spectators; and among them at the extreme left Lancret has painted his own portrait. He is wearing a dark mantle and a _biretta_, and looks directly toward the observer.

The dancer, who gives the name to the picture, is the celebrated Marie Anne de Cuppi de Camargo, born in Brussels in 1710. The Princess de Ligne became interested in her and sent her to Paris at the age of ten to be trained for a dancer. Under Madame Prevost, a dancer at the Opéra, her progress was so rapid that she made her _début_ at the Opéra at the age of seventeen, when her extraordinary grace and her wonderful clothes caused her to be acclaimed as a star. Through the lessons of Blondy and Dupré she perfected her talents and became the most famous Parisian dancer of her time. A _liaison_ with the Comte de Clermonte Abbé of Saint-Germain-des-Prés caused her to leave the Opéra in 1734; but she returned in 1740 and regained her former triumphs. This was the time when Lancret painted some wonderful portraits of the great _danseuse_, including the fine picture presented here. Mademoiselle Camargo retired permanently in 1751 and died in Paris in 1770.

_Collection of the Hon. Andrew J. Mellon_

LA CARMARGO

--_Nicolas Lancret_]

Nicolas Lancret was born in Paris in 1690 and died there in 1743. He was a pupil of Pierre d’Ulin and Claude Gillot; but he adopted Watteau as his model. Indeed, his close imitations of Watteau estranged the latter. Lancret, however, won a great reputation for his beautiful sense of composition, his fine design, and his charming color. He was elected a member of the French Academy of Painting in 1719. His landscapes are always delicate and romantic, and as a painter of _Fêtes galantes_ he almost equals Watteau and Pater.

LE DUO.

_Nicolas Lancret
(1690–1743)._

_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Emil J. Stehli._

At first glance we might take this painting for a Watteau, for Lancret has shown in it the same appreciation of park scenery, leafy and fresh foliage, charming figures of grace and refinement, and, even more particularly, the suggestion of music. We seem to hear the liquid, silvery, cool notes of the flute and the sweet, clear voice of the pretty young lady who is singing from a book of music while the young gallant looks over her shoulder and plays his part in the duet. The costumes are lovely; the young lady is dressed in white and the flute-player wears a brownish-red suit. The flute-player’s pose is interesting: all his weight is placed on his right foot. Note his hands: they are properly placed on the holes of his instrument, which he is holding as a musician. The French have always been superlative flute-players and it was only natural that Lancret would select a capable musician for his model. We can make a safe guess that the music we are hearing from these musicians is an air by Rameau, whose operas and ballets were enjoying great vogue when this picture was painted. The work, oils on canvas (19¾ × 16¾ inches), belonged to the Collection of Sir William Knighton, Bart., and came from that of Mr. Pitt Rivers of London to the present owner, Mr. Emil J. Stehli of New York.

Comparing Lancret with Watteau, Eugène Langevin writes:

“First the style of the master was not adopted by him in its entirety; he modified it in accordance with his own disposition; he has played some of Watteau’s melodies, but in a lower key and with a slower movement. It is _conversations galantes_ rather than _fêtes galantes_ that he paints. He seems to feel that he does not possess the fire, the caprice, the vivacity, the imagination, and the supreme poetic distinction that are required for _Departures for the Enchanted Isle_. He halts half-way. Where Watteau painted sumptuous and impassioned eclogues, Lancret portrays rural amusements, richly adorned and at the same time frolicsome as he had seen them on the boards. Watteau revels in the most magical of fictions: he is the Shakespeare, the Aristophanes of Art.

_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Emil J. Stehli_

LE DUO

--_Nicolas Lancret_]

“Like Watteau, Lancret broke with the academic traditions of the day, which were all for reddish or brown tints: he acknowledged a wholesome horror of burnt colors. And if he lacks that distinction which his master owed to his constant practice of Flemish and Venetian Art and to his own natural gifts, if he cannot produce those glowing and _rutilant_ tonalities full of golden sheen, those rich colors, and those subtle harmonies of infinitely delicate beauty, he, at least, possessed a palette both rich and refined.”

UNE FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE.

_Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
(1695–1736)._

_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._

This brilliant picture, painted in 1733, the height of the Regency period, came from the Collection of Lady Carnarvon, having been bequeathed to her by Alfred Charles de Rothschild of Seymour Place, London.

The scene is laid in a romantic landscape with the ruins of an old _château_ and other ancient buildings surrounded by beautiful, feathery trees. Upon the green sward groups of men, women, and children have gathered to enjoy themselves in various ways. The merry assemblage, dressed in brilliant costumes of delightful colors, charmingly harmonized and contrasted, are dancing, feasting, making love, and watching actors and mountebanks perform. Even two little dogs in the foreground have partaken of the general gaiety. The movement, _brio_ and general _joie de vivre_ make this a veritable panorama of the Eighteenth Century. The picture is also noteworthy for being the largest ever painted by Pater.

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

UNE FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE

--_J. B. J. Pater_]

Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater was born at Valenciennes in 1695, the son of a wood-carver who appreciated his son’s talent, taught him what he could, and then took him to Paris, where he became a pupil of his fellow-townsman, Watteau. The irritable temper of Watteau caused a separation; but in 1721 Watteau sent for Pater to come to him at Nogent-sur-Marne and gave him daily instruction.

Pater was very “modernistic” in his time, for in 1728 he was received into the Academy as a member of the new class of “_peintres de sujets modernes_.”

Pater was entirely absorbed in his art. He rarely left his studio, formed no friendships, painted all day and every day, and gave himself no pleasures. His feverish industry coupled with his parsimonious living--he was haunted by the fear of poverty in old age--at last told upon him and he died in Paris in 1736.

Pater is a very close follower of Watteau in subject and composition as well as in his charming and delicate color.

UNE FÊTE GALANTE.

_Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
(1695–1736)._

_Collection of
Mr. Edward J. Berwind._

It is interesting to compare this picture with the _Fête Champêtre_ preceding it. We have two characteristic examples of Pater’s work. In the _Fête Champêtre_ we look upon a large gathering and a miscellaneous crowd. In the picture represented here we have a more intimate group. There are certain elements in this picture that suggest Watteau; others that suggest Lancret; and still others that show us that the later Boucher and Fragonard did not deign to take a few ideas from Pater. The picture is very individual. The colors are soft and delicate--“pastel” tints we like to call them to-day--pale blues, and pinks, and yellows, and rich mauves, contrasting beautifully with the exquisite green of the foliage. Pater never produced a more artistic background, with its distant hills and picturesque buildings. The painting came from the Wertheimer Collection, London, to the present owner.

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_

UNE FÊTE GALANTE

--_J. B. J. Pater_]

LA SERINETTE.

_Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin
(1699–1779)._

_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._

Madame de Pompadour, whose taste in art was always superlatively good, was the first owner of this charming picture, which has passed through many notable collections. The work is known under three titles: _La Serinette_ (the Bird-Organ); the _Education of a Canary_; and _The Diversions of a Lady_. According to tradition this lady is Madame Chardin, wife of the painter. The sitting-room gives us an idea of her varied occupations and it would appear that she has just left her tapestry-work to give her canary a singing-lesson. The bird is seen in a cage, which stands on a little table near the window, and Madame Chardin is turning the handle of the bird-organ. We would like to know the tune the little music-box produces. Both as regards subject and treatment the picture is a masterpiece. Jean Guiffrey considers the work most charming and admires the way all the many accessories are brought into perfect harmony. “It would be impossible to find,” he says, “a more correct design and a better color scheme and tonality.”

Chardin sent this picture to the Salon of 1751 and again to that of 1755. After Madame de Pompadour’s death _La Serinette_ passed into the notable Collections of Monsieur de Vandières, director of the Royal Buildings; the Marquis de Menars, Madame de Pompadour’s brother (sold in 1783); Baron Denon, Director of Museums (sale 1826); Count d’Houdetot (sale 1859); Duke de Morny (sale 1865); Mr. G. du Tillet of Paris; and, finally, to the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick.

The picture was shown in 1860 at the Exposition of the Association for the Mutual Relief of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (No. 92).

Chardin was one of the greatest colorists of the French School and one of the greatest painters of the Eighteenth Century. Few painters have equalled him in his broad and free style and in his luminous effects of color and light.

_Collection of the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick_

LA SERINETTE

--_J. B. S. Chardin_]

Chardin was born in Paris, Nov. 2, 1699, the son of a master-carpenter and upholsterer, who was employed to make billiard-tables for Louis XIV. After studying under Pierre Jacques Cazes, Chardin entered the studio of Noël Nicolas Coypel. Before he was thirty he had made a name as a painter of still-life. In 1728 Chardin was admitted to the Académie Royale and eventually became its treasurer. In 1752 Louis XV bestowed a pension upon him and in 1757 gave him rooms in the Louvre. In his middle period Chardin struck out in a new path--that of frank realism, selecting for subjects scenes from the domestic life of the _bourgeoisie_; but he treats everything, however, with the distinction and taste that belonged to France in the Eighteenth Century. Therefore, he throws a poetic glamour around a loaf of bread, a bunch of grapes, a plate of peaches, a sleeping cat, or a copper _casserole_. Consequently, while his subjects are similar to those of the “Little Dutch Masters,” Chardin introduces an elegance and a quality of which those painters never dreamed. Neither Pieter de Hoogh, nor Vermeer, excelled Chardin in effects of light, atmosphere, and iridescence. “Chardin,” Élie Faure writes, “did not paint much because he paints slowly with a laborious and passionate application. He has no models, but his wife, children, a few familiar animals, the everyday tableware, and cooking-utensils and then there are meat, vegetables, bread, and wine brought that same day from the butcher, the meat-roaster, the baker, and the vegetable seller. With these he writes the legend of domestic labor and of obscure life: his images speak to us after the manner of La Fontaine’s words and he is, with Watteau and Goya, the greatest painter there is in Europe between the death of Rembrandt and the maturity of Corot and of Delacroix.”

Chardin is an artist beloved by artists. In a sympathetic criticism, Armand-Dayot writes:

“It is not by accident that I am using this word _métier: beauté du métier_--all is comprised in that phrase. By this phrase the greater number of the French artists of the Eighteenth Century should be judged. _La beauté du métier_--that expresses all their efforts. And, indeed, what formula could better define Chardin than the _beauté du métier_? An illumination, meticulous and systematic, because it has been so well ordered and arranged; light departing from one point to appear at another and showing the various objects according to the place they occupy with relation to the distance from the luminous centre; a beautiful paste of the best composition in its own day and which time has converted into a transparent and limpid enamel; and, above all, that classical arrangement, which is like that of Poussin, Le Brun, Le Sueur and Claude Lorrain, add to the play of great sweeps of color; the enchanting reflections that cross one another and that are superimposed without breaking the original balance of the contrasting colors; and the rigorous drawing--such are the reasons why we class Chardin high in the French traditions of clarity and beautiful arrangement of light. In his richness of color he is derived from the Venetians and he became the ancestor of Fantin-Latour.”

Chardin’s vogue is increasing day by day, for he belongs to that small group of great masters who have played with light. Perhaps, more than any other painter, Chardin succeeded in producing the most subtle overtones of color. M. Armand-Dayot, as we have just seen, claims Chardin as the ancestor of Fantin-Latour. May we not also suggest that in Chardin, Matisse has found inspiration for his delicate and tenuous effects in the upper reaches of the color scale?

We get a glimpse of Chardin at work from Diderot who, after a visit to his _atelier_, wrote:

“Chardin, who has such a keen feeling for color, keeps his eyes glued upon his canvas: his mouth is half-open; and he breathes heavily. His palette is a picture of chaos and into this chaos he dips his brush. From it he draws his work of real creation,--birds with all the delicate _nuances_ of tint in their plumage; flowers with velvet petals; trees of varied foliage and greenery, the blue of the sky, the spray of water, animals with their soft fur and the fire flaming from their brilliant eyes. The painter rises, walks some distance away, and throws a rapid glance upon his picture; then he seats himself again before this canvas and you soon see appear flesh tints, cloth, velvet, damask, taffetas, transparent muslin, or heavy linen. You also see the ripe yellow pear falling from the tree and the green grapes hanging on the vine.”

LES DEUX CONFIDENTES.

_François Boucher
(1703–1770)._

_Collection of
Mrs. William R. Timken._

Madame de Pompadour was the first owner of this picture and it looks as if it might have been painted at her suggestion. It is signed and dated 1750 and measures 32 × 29 inches,--a perfect size for a boudoir or a small _salon_. Next the picture was in the Collections of Pillet-Will, the Marquis de Marigny, and the Marquis de Menars.

Here we have two young ladies of high degree playing at pastoral life. Their bare feet and the presence of sheep are the only suggestion that they are shepherdesses. They are, however, shepherdesses of the kind we read of in the eclogues of poets.

In every way the picture is charming. The composition is faultless, the lights splendidly concentrated and diffused, and the colors are of exquisite beauty. Against the green of the feathery trees in the background and the verdant turf in the foreground the lustrous silken dresses--palest blue and palest rose--of the young ladies who are exchanging confidences (doubtless of faithful or faithless lovers) appear to the greatest advantage. The flowers, tumbling out of the basket which has fallen down, are most sympathetically painted by one who rarely, if ever, omitted roses in any picture. All the colors melt and mingle in perfect harmony.

Boucher painted at the height of the Louis XV period and of this period Élie Faure says:

“François Boucher is its soul. Fashion is always present in his facile and fecund work--on ceilings, screens, carriage-panels, _dessous portes_, boxes and fans--shepherdesses and pastorales everywhere and on every thing. Charming in manner, generous, pleasure-loving and adored by both men and women, Boucher stands with the King’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, as the centre of his own revolving circle of winged Cupids and garlands of flowers.”

_Collection of Mrs. William R. Timken_

LES DEUX CONFIDENTES

--_François Boucher_]

François Boucher, born in Paris, Sept. 29, 1703, began his career as an illustrator and engraver and went to Italy with Carle Van Loo. Returning to Paris in 1731 he frequented the gay society of operatic and theatrical circles and acquired reputation. In 1734 he was admitted to the Academy with his picture of _Rinaldo and Armida_ now in the Louvre. Boucher became associated with the tapestry-manufactory at Beauvais and also at the Gobelins and in 1765 succeeded Carle Van Loo as first painter to Louis XV. Boucher attracted the attention of Madame de Pompadour and decorated her boudoirs and _salons_, and painted several portraits of this handsome lady. Boucher died in the Louvre in 1770, while painting _Venus at her Toilet_. According to his own record Boucher painted a thousand pictures and made ten thousand drawings and sketches.

A YOUNG GIRL READING A LETTER.

_Jean Baptiste Greuze
(1725–1805)._

_Collection of
Mr. John McCormack._

This picture, an oil painting on canvas (27½ × 21½ inches), comes from the Collection of Alfred Charles de Rothschild, Seamore Place, London, and represents a young girl seated in an upholstered chair wearing a white chemise, which has slipped from her shoulders. An open letter is spread on her lap,--a letter before envelopes were known, for this has the seal still attached. However, letters bring tidings of delight or sorrow, with or without envelopes, and we have no clue to the contents of this one. We gather, however, that the missive is a love-letter.

_Collection of Mr. John McCormack_

A YOUNG GIRL READING A LETTER

--_Jean Baptiste Greuze_]

Jean Baptiste Greuze was born at Tournous, near Macon, Burgundy, and was the son of a thatcher. He first studied painting with a travelling picture-pedlar named Grondon and went with him to Lyons and lived there for eight years, painting pictures and hawking them about the country. However, Grondon was the father of the wife of Grétry, the composer, so Greuze probably had a little taste of art. In 1746 he went to Paris and worked at the Academy, making some progress in historical painting and portraits. One day he astonished everybody by his picture of _Un père de famille expliquant la Bible à ses enfants_ and _Le Paralytique servi par ses enfants_, which caused him to be received as an _Académicien_. Others of this type of pathetic, or homely, story-telling in paint followed. This, then new style of art, won Greuze many admirers, among them Diderot. In 1756 Greuze went to Rome for two years and on his return to Paris began to exhibit his now famous busts and heads of beautiful young girls. Between 1755 and 1769 Greuze exhibited about one hundred and twenty pictures at the Louvre and, after the Revolution, about thirty works. He was entirely broken by the Revolution and died in 1805 in poverty and oblivion.

YOUNG GIRL.

_Jean Baptiste Greuze
(1725–1805)._

_Collection of
Mr. William Randolph Hearst._

We hardly know which face to admire the most--that of the little girl or that of her little dog with the bright, intelligent eyes, so loving and so trustful.

_Collection of Mr. William Randolph Hearst_

YOUNG GIRL

--_Jean Baptiste Greuze_]

This picture (14 × 14 inches) Greuze has painted with the tenderest care,--depicting the budding beauty of the child; and he has, moreover, used the swirling curves in such a distinguished manner that we think of the circles and the curves in Raphael’s _Madonna della Sedia_ in the Pitti. There is a gentle sadness in the face of the little girl of which the little companion and friend, so confidently nestled in her loving arms, seems to be conscious; and, perhaps, a little worried as well.

LA MARQUISE DE BESONS TUNING A GUITAR

_Jean Baptiste Greuze
(1725–1805)._

_Collection of
Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs._

At the Salon of 1757 Greuze exhibited this portrait under the title of _Madame X Tuning a Guitar_. Many who saw the picture recognized Madame X as Anne de Bricqueville de la Luzerne, wife of Jacques Bazin, Marquis de Besons, a very prominent and powerful lord of the Houses of Hupin, Neuvill, etc., and Lieutenant-General of the King’s armies.

Madame de Besons is wearing a pale pink silk dress with a deep flounce with sleeves of the favorite Mechlin lace and a large cape with collar. Her hair is waved in fine shells and adorned with the little spray of flowers that Madame de Pompadour had made the fashion at this moment. A necklace consisting of three rows of perfectly matched pearls proclaim Madame de Besons a lady of wealth. The chair in which Madame de Besons is sitting is a handsome example of Louis XV furniture, gold frame upholstered in light green brocade. The background is dark grey. The painting (37 × 29¼ inches) is an unusual and a most artistic work of Greuze.

LA MARQUISE DE VILLEMONBLE.

_François Hubert Drouais
(1727–1775)._

_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._

One is often asked to define the _style Louis XV_. Could there possibly be a better definition than is expressed in this exquisite portrait of an exquisite lady,--La Marquise de Villemonble? Is not the very essence, the spirit, the perfume of the Eighteenth Century seen in the face, the dress, the pose, the manner, the charm, and the “grand style” of the Marquise?

_Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs_

LA MARQUISE DE BESONS TUNING A GUITAR

--_Jean Baptiste Greuze_]

It is very evident that Drouais took deep delight in painting this aristocratic lady and her beautiful costume as well. We can see with what pleasure the painter’s brush swept into being the lustre and the folds of the pale lemon satin dress; traced the delicate pattern of the Mechlin lace that forms the ruffles of the bell-sleeves and the garniture of the neck; tied the bows of rich pink satin adorning the corsage and holding the lace at the sleeves; touched up the cluster of shaded grey feathers and rounded the pearls in the _coiffure_; placed the little string of black velvet around the neck; and lingered upon the sheet of music which the Marquise is holding so gracefully. The words below the notes show that the lady is a singer. Yet all these carefully painted details do not detract from the beauty of the lady herself. Her features are high-bred, sweet, and perfect, and her expression shows great loveliness of nature. Altogether the Marquise de Villemonble is a beautiful and charming person and Drouais, we may be sure, has not flattered her in this beautiful and charming portrait. The canvas (46 × 35 inches) is signed and dated 1761 and it is interesting to relate that it came directly from the Villemonble family to its present owner, Mr. Jules S. Bache.

François Hubert Drouais was born in Paris in 1727 and studied under his father, Hubert Drouais (1699–1767), a portrait-painter who was also famous for his miniatures. Young François grew up with the great painters of the day, who were friends of his father--Nattier, de Troy, Oudry, and others--and he became a pupil of Carle Van Loo and Boucher. With such masters is it any wonder that Drouais should have developed _style_?

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

LA MARQUISE DE VILLEMONBLE

--_François Hubert Drouais_]

Drouais began to exhibit at the Salon of 1755 and appeared every year subsequently until his death in 1775. His talents brought him recognition and he became painter to the King, to Monsieur and Madame, and practically all the nobility and aristocracy of France sat to him. Naturally, the world of fashion followed suit. Drouais painted Madame de Pompadour and owed much to her patronage. He also painted Madame du Barry many times and his vogue continued through the reign of Louis XVI. One of his most successful portraits--Marie Antoinette as Hebe--now hangs at Chantilly and gives a most distinguished presentation of the young Queen, a proud figure in yellow draperies, rose-colored waist ribbons, and lilac scarf, holding a golden cup in one hand and a silver ewer in the other.

Drouais holds his own with Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Fragonard, Greuze, Chardin, and de la Tour, for he, too, like these artists of radiant style, knew how to present with skillful and polished technique, flowing lines, fluent grace, piquant expression, characteristic gesture, and fashionable dress. Moreover, his quick observation and light touch produce something akin to sparkling comedy; and yet in all the play of his brush and his airy manner Drouais never failed to create an atmosphere of elegance and distinction.

MADEMOISELLE HELVETIUS.

_François Hubert Drouais
(1727–1775)._

_Collection of
Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff._

That Drouais was a master who could succeed with any subject for portraiture will be appreciated by comparing this sympathetic presentation of a pretty little girl with the preceding portrait of La Marquise de Villemonble, who appears in the full beauty of maturity. Even Greuze, with all his skill in representing youthful charm, never produced a lovelier work than this Mademoiselle Helvetius. Here the little girl looks at us smiling beneath her big “shepherdess” hat, holding in her dress clusters of purple and jade colored grapes. Drouais evidently appreciated the decorative beauty of the grape and its leaves, for he has brought out their character and lusciousness with a loving surety of touch that shows him to be on a par with any painter who has specialized in fruit.

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff_

MADEMOISELLE HELVETIUS

--_François Hubert Drouais_]

The delightful painting, which is signed, came to its present owner from the J. P. Morgan Collection.

L’INVOCATION À L’AMOUR.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard
(1732–1806)._

_Collection of
Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff._

The de Goncourts remarked in their _L’Art du Dix-huitième Siècle_ that the two great--and the only great--poets in France in the Eighteenth Century were Watteau and Fragonard; and they very fancifully and very truly said that the saucy little Loves hovering about in the sky of _L’Embarquement pour L’Île de Cythère_ were “getting ready to fly to Fragonard and to put on his palette the hues of their butterfly wings.”

Of that tragic painting, _Corésus and Callirhoé_ (in the Louvre) the de Goncourts, noting the extraordinary movement and whirl in the work, said “a great mute cry seems to rise in the composition,” and then added: “This cry of a picture, so new for the Eighteenth Century, is Passion.”

Fragonard had the genius for expressing movement and emotion to such a degree that sometimes “a cry” seems to issue from his canvas. This rush of movement and this torrent of emotion, this outburst like leaping flames and whirling clouds, is expressed in full power in the picture represented here, which bears some likeness to the _Fountain of Love_ in the Wallace Gallery, London.

_L’Invocation à l’Amour_ (20½ × 24¾ inches) was painted between 1780 and 1785. It came into public notice at the La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt Sale in Paris in 1827 and has since belonged to the Collections of M. le duc de Polignac; to Madame la duchesse de Polignac née Crillon; to Mr. L. Neumann, London; and to M. Jean Bertoloni, Paris. _L’Invocation à l’Amour_ was shown at the Fragonard Exposition, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 1921, and came thereafter into possession of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff.

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff_

L’INVOCATION À L’AMOUR

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

Jean Honoré Fragonard was born at Grasse in 1732 and died in Paris in 1806. He studied under Chardin and Boucher, won the _grand prix_ de Rome at the age of twenty, studied in Rome, visited Naples and Sicily with Hubert Robert, and, returning to Paris, leaped into fame with his _Corésus and Callirhoé_ in 1765. Fragonard painted every subject--love-scenes, portraits, _genre_, and landscape--equally well and always with the lightest touch, the most delicate colors, and infinite charm.

“His method,” says Louis Hautecœur, “is even more dexterous than that of Boucher, because he is better instructed; this rapidity of brush-work is not negligent, because it is guided by previous study; this freedom of handling is not hap-hazard: it springs from the joy of creating; that is what makes Fragonard a great painter. Thus a natural sensibility, which gave to his works movement, picturesque character, and color seems to be the master faculty of Fragonard; and out of this movement, this feeling for the picturesque, and this color arises a fantasy composed of intelligence and imagination. The _Fête of St. Cloud_ becomes a fairy scene; the _Garden of Fontainebleau_ the setting of a dream; and the _Fountain of Love_ flows in a world of mystery. Fragonard was not only a _painter_ unique in style, but he was a _poet_ of that century of which he saw the close--a _poet_ whose sensibility was shown less in the nature of his works than in the manner in which he treated them: in his golden rays of light; in the shadowy recesses of the parks; in the cloud forms of a tempest; in the youthful charm of children; and in the grace of women--and herein lies his originality.”

LE BILLET-DOUX.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard
(1732–1806)._

_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._

In studying this graceful composition with its subtle harmonies of color and its amazing play of iridescent reflections and ever changing lights it is easy to see that Fragonard spent some time in the studio of Chardin, having the benefit of instruction from that great master. Charm is the keynote of the picture. The colors are indescribable as they are constantly changing; but the general tonality is golden-brown in all the shades of leaves at autumn with sunlight playing upon them and combined with the softest blue of the sky; and these browns and blues are so merged and mingled that they shimmer and vary like “changeable velvet.” The effect is, therefore, both rich and, at the same time, tender, soft, and brilliant. A few high lights of pink are discreetly used. The charming, piquant, and lovely lady, is said to be the daughter of Boucher and was married to another painter, Baudouin, and, after his death, to M. de Cuviller. The lady is half rising from her writing-table and is holding in her left hand a bouquet of pink roses in a conical paper-holder into which she is placing a letter, addressed to “Monsieur M. C.” Her head is turned a little to the front and her expression seems to indicate that she does not wish to be detected in her pretty romance. She is a person of elegance and fashion and her dress is altogether _comme il faut_, in what we please to call to-day a “Watteau costume,” with the panniers and the “Watteau plait” at the back. The material is a very pale blue velvet with brownish lights. Her hair is dressed fashionably and surmounted by a modish little “butterfly cap” brightened with pink ribbons, which, with the pink roses, are the only notes of bright color in the picture. Lying on the chair and looking directly out of the picture is a darling little poodle dog. In the “_Billet-Doux_,” Louis Hautecœur says, “we can best appreciate the skill of the master who delighted in making a golden light play across a yellow curtain upon a blue robe.”

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

LE BILLET-DOUX

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

This painting (33¾ × 26⅜ inches) passed through the Collections of the Baron Feuillet de Conches; Madame Jagerschmidt; M. Ernest Cronier; and M. Joseph Bardac,--all of Paris. The _Billet-Doux_ was shown at the Alsace-Lorraine Exhibitions of 1874 and 1927, and is lauded in all the standard works on Fragonard.

LA MARQUISE DE LA FARE.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard
(1732–1806)._

_Collection of
Mrs. James B. Haggin._

Could anything be lighter, lovelier, and more graceful in the way of painting than this distinguished representation of the distinguished Marquise de la Fare? For elegant simplicity as well as technique this portrait is without a peer. Only Fragonard could have painted it. There is something here that reminds us of the flicker and flutter and quick movement and vitality of the flame,--that symbol of the soul and of eternal life. Unconsciously, perhaps, by these leaping, flashing lines the painter symbolized his own genius and the spirit of the exquisite lady he was privileged to portray. With his butterfly touch and his liquid, rapid brush, Fragonard caught this charming personality. Yet, behind this quick impressionistic work--as light in key and ethereal in harmony as Claude Monet or Matisse--what knowledge, what skill! Here is all the majesty of Greek sculpture at its climax of perfection, but Greek sculpture rendered dynamic and human. And what a pose! What exquisite arms and hands! What style! What _chic_! The dress is cream and the drapery, old rose, harmonizing with the ash-blonde hair and blue eyes.

_Collection of Mrs. James B. Haggin_

LA MARQUISE DE LA FARE

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

The picture (31¾ × 25 inches) came directly from the de la Fare family to its present owner.

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE PARK.

_Hubert Robert
(1733–1808)._

_Collection of
Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs._

When Hubert Robert exhibited for the first time in August, 1765, he won instant recognition. The French public at a period when taste was supreme, praised the originality of Hubert Robert’s design and his exquisite delicacy of coloring and decided, moreover, that although his study of the antique had been thorough and sympathetic, the new artist was, above all, a Parisian of Parisians.

Hubert Robert plays on two themes: one, the ruins of antiquity--especially Rome--and the other, garden-scenes. In fact, his success with ruins as subject-matter gave him the _sobriquet_ of “_Robert des Ruines_.” Hubert Robert was born in Paris in 1733 and after some preliminary art education went to Rome in 1754, where he studied for eleven years, devoting himself almost exclusively to antiquities. On his return to Paris he was made a member of the Academy and his pictures brought him instant fame. He lived in the studios in the Louvre until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he was imprisoned for ten months; but during this time he painted and produced a _Taking of the Prisoners by Torchlight in Open Carts from St. Pélagie to St. Lazare_. He was lucky in his release, which occurred through the mistake of the jailer, who sent another prisoner of the same name to the guillotine. Hubert Robert died in Paris on April 15, 1808. Equal to his reputation as a painter was his reputation as a landscape-gardener. He was the successor of Le Nôtre, whose style had given place to the Anglo-Chinese gardens. Hubert Robert, as architect of the King’s Gardens, designed the _Baths of Apollo_ in the Park of Versailles in 1784, and he laid out the very famous grounds of Mézéville near Étampes-in-Beauce, in which work Joseph Vernet was associated.

_Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs_

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE PARK

--_Hubert Robert_]

The distinguished picture shown here (57½ × 39 inches) from the Collection of M. S. Bardac, Paris, presents the artist also as a garden-lover. All the poetry produced by a tossing stream of spray among green trees is expressed here.

“Hubert Robert,” writes Henri Frantz, “is one of those who, brought back into fashion by the de Goncourts and their generation, enjoy a reputation increasing every day; and thus drawings in red chalk or in water-colors which one might easily have picked up years ago in the boxes of the petty dealers of Paris or of Rome are found to-day in museums and in the most celebrated Collections and fetch the highest prices in European sales. Moreover, Hubert Robert did not go out of fashion till the commencement of the Nineteenth Century and no artist was _fêted_ and admired by his contemporaries more than he.”

Hubert Robert has again become the fashion.

MADAME LABILLE-GUIARD AND TWO PUPILS.

_Madame Labille-Guiard
(1749–1803)._

_Collection of
Mr. Edward J. Berwind._

Here we have a picture painted in the grand style, a beautiful composition, a marvellous expression of technique, and a portrait-group including a self-portrait of the artist.

Madame Labille-Guiard, a handsome women of dashing style, is seated before her easel busy at work, wearing a very handsome costume and not one exactly appropriate to working in a studio. However, the painter being as delightfully feminine in her tastes as she was masculine in her artistic performance, has the vanity of her sex to wish to be perpetuated in rich and fashionable attire,--_comme il faut_ in every respect.

The two young ladies, who are observing the work of Madame Labille-Guiard are her favorite pupils, Mesdemoiselles Capet and Rosemond.

Madame Labille-Guiard’s dress is blue-grey satin with lace at neck and sleeves and hat of golden straw with blue-grey ostrich feathers matching the dress. The chair in which the artist is seated is upholstered in green velvet. The pupil in front wears a dark brown dress. Most beautifully is painted the diaphanous ruffle at her elbow.

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_

MADAME LABILLE-GUIARD AND TWO PUPILS

--_Madame Labille-Guiard_]

The picture of large dimensions (82½ × 60 inches) is signed and dated 1785 and was exhibited at the Salon in that year. From the Collection of Madame Griois, a descendant of the artist, the painting came to its present owner, Mr. Edward J. Berwind.

Adélaïde Labille-des-Vertus was born in Paris, April 11, 1749. She studied art under François Élie Vincent, a clever miniature-painter and afterward under Latour. She married twice: first, the sculptor Guiard, and, after his death, François André Vincent, the son of her former teacher, himself a capable painter and etcher. Madame Labille-Guiard became an Académicien in 1783 at the same time with Madame Vigée Lebrun. She painted a great number of large oil-portraits and miniatures, and in 1787 and 1789 attracted attention by her portraits of the King’s daughters, Madame Adélaïde and Madame Victoire. She also painted a large picture for Monsieur (afterwards Louis XVIII), called the _Initiation of a Knight of Malta_, which was finished at the outbreak of the Revolution; but which was destroyed. Madame Labille-Guiard died in Paris on Floréal 4, _An XI. de la République_, or April 8, 1803.

ENGLISH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

_ENGLISH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY_

When Théophile Gautier saw Gainsborough’s portrait of _Mr. and Mrs. Hallet_, now known as _The Morning Walk_, he said that he felt “a strange retrospective sensation, so intense is the illusion it produces of the spirit of the Eighteenth Century. We really fancy we see the young couple,” he adds, “walking arm-in-arm along a garden avenue.”

It is this “strange retrospective sensation” that we feel when we look upon the canvases of Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney.

The Eighteenth Century was one of those periods in the world’s history when Society reached its peak, when Society was the goal of all things and of every one, and when it was dominated by taste, elegance, gaiety, lightness, brightness, wit, beauty, and charm. There was charm in everything--in art, in music, in literature, in conversation, and in dress. There was a _chic_ and dainty grace with which the Eighteenth Century belle wore her large hat, tied her sash, and pointed the toe of her high-heeled satin slipper on the polished floor of the ball-room, or the greensward of the garden or lawn; and there was a corresponding _chic_ and dashing elegance with which the Eighteenth Century _beau_ made his bow, tapped his snuff-box, or handed the “ladies of St. James’s” in and out of their sedan-chairs.

This sparkling, iridescent age, with its taste, grace, and wit can never come again--for our world has travelled far along another path--but if the Eighteenth Century cannot return to us, we can return to it by means of its literature, its music, and its art.

At such a period, when the social world was of exceptional brilliance, it is only natural that the art of portraiture should have flourished with unparalleled lustre.

Three great geniuses arose in England to bring this special branch of painting up to a pitch that had never been reached there before.

It is true that Holbein’s portraits are magnificent, stately, and true to life, and that they present wonderful portrayals of character; but Holbein was painting in a world of drastic change, of adventure, of political agitation, when nearly everyone whom he painted had the fear of the axe descending upon his neck. It is true that Van Dyck painted people of elegance and distinguished manner--the portrait of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick on page 189 would alone prove this--and gives us a glimpse into a charming world.

But Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney were the first to paint Society--that brilliant, witty, provocative, frivolous, graceful, charming, _chic_, and altogether delightful Society of the Eighteenth Century.

The Eighteenth Century! How we delight in it!

We are not too far away to feel at home in it; and, moreover, much of our beautiful Georgian architecture survives in this country with Chippendale, Sheraton, and Heppelwhite furniture and Spode, Wedgwood, Chelsea, Lowestoft and various china, with other relics besides, to show us that our Colonial forefathers lived in style and elegance. The latest fashions in household furnishings and dress travelled here from London even quicker than they travelled to the English provinces.

To lift the curtain upon the Eighteenth Century is like lifting the cover from a Chinese jar of _pot-pourri_; and just as that subtle yet pungent scent of rose-leaves, lavender, sweet spices, and musk float from it, so visions appear before another sense. Our inherited memories bring before us pictures of brocade gowns or “hoops,” flowered silk overdresses, high-heeled satin slippers with glittering buckles, ruffles of Mechlin lace, “chicken-skin” fans gay with Watteau or Lancret or Pater pictures, rustling silks, shimmering satins, nodding feathers, cinnamon coats, Ramilies tie-wigs, lace-solitaires, wrist-ruffles, cocked-hats, swords, and snuff-boxes.

We seem to stand in lovely gardens, bright with roses and hollyhocks, larkspur, foxglove, amaranth, love-in-a-mist, bleeding-hearts, and gilliflowers, noting the moving shadow on the sundial and watching the stately peacocks behind the well-clipped hedges of box and holly; or we follow the fashionable world to Ranelagh or Vauxhall, where we look with fascinated gaze on the beautiful women in hoops of brocade or lutestring silk, much painted, powdered and patched, glancing archly beneath their coquettish “gipsy hats” at their gallant escorts, who know so well how to lead them through the steps of a minuet or a gavotte to the rococo tunes of Rameau, Dr. Arne, or Couperin with their quirls and pretty runs and trills and long pauses for stately bows.

That world is so fascinating to us that we fancy we, too, could wear without embarrassment the elaborate costume and that we, too, would feel much at home with Horace Walpole and his friends at _Strawberry Hill_. We, too, might be able to prepare minced chicken in a chafing-dish, just as satisfactorily as the Miss Berrys; and we like to fancy that we could take part in their airy conversation of charm, banter, and light mockery. At any rate, if we should not be able to succeed in entertaining Horace Walpole, we are very certain that Sir Horace could entertain us!

All the Society people of London of this time seem very friendly to us and we are strangely “at home” with the portraits of Gainsborough, Sir Joshua, and Romney.

When we look upon _Diana, Lady Crosbie_, _Lady Betty Delmé_, _Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire_, _Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester_, _Lady Derby_, and _The Hon. Mrs. Davenport_ do we not feel that we have known and talked to these people in the flesh? Their eyes meet ours and our thoughts meet theirs,--and we are not strangers to one another.

And when we look upon Gainsborough’s _Mall_ does it not bring back memories of the time when we, ourselves, walked there with all the gay throng of a bright morning?

Lord Gower said very aptly:

“Gainsborough created a new school by making a lady’s petticoat a thing of beauty. He could even throw a halo upon a ribbon or a scarf.”

That is true; but Lord Gower forgot the fact that the lady had by her taste and her high-bred elegance conferred distinction on her clothes by the fitness with which she selected them and by the manner in which she wore them.

Thrice in England have pairs of geniuses appeared at the same time, inviting comparison and attracting partisans--Keats and Shelley; Thackeray and Dickens; and Reynolds and Gainsborough.

There should be no partisans. The more we love and admire Keats, the better we are able to admire and love Shelley; the more we appreciate and delight in Dickens, the more we are able to appreciate and delight in Thackeray; and the more we comprehend and enjoy Sir Joshua, the more we are able to comprehend and enjoy Gainsborough.

Although they were rivals--and quite bitter ones at times--the two supreme English painters of the Eighteenth Century admired each other prodigiously.

“Damn him! how various he is!” Gainsborough exclaimed of Reynolds; and Sir Joshua remarked to Sir George Beaumont of Gainsborough; “I cannot imagine how he manages to produce his effects.”

“What is it then that gives Romney his hold upon this generation and will continue to give him a hold so long as a love of art endures among us?” Humphrey Ward asks; and then he answers his own question as follows:

“In part, of course, it is because he shares with Reynolds and Gainsborough the good fortune of having kept alive for us a society of which the fascination is enduring--that limited and privileged society of the Eighteenth Century which has realized such a perfect art of living and with which we can clasp hands across the gap as we cannot with the men and women of Charles the Second’s time, or even of Queen Anne’s. Much more is it because of temperament and training. Romney was an artist in love with loveliness; because he found it in the women and children of his time and stamped it on countless canvases.

“To our problem-haunted painters of to-day it may be seen that his sense of form was ‘generic and superficial’; they may condemn him because he did not try to penetrate deep into character and because he simplified too much, like the Greek sculptors. The lover of mere human beauty will care little for such objections, provided that a portrait gives him the essentials of a beautiful face.

‘The witchery of eyes, the grace that tips
The inexpressible douceur of the lips’--