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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
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- Place of Birth: Paris, France
- Place of Death: Paris, France
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Results: 12
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- A Young Woman in a Kitchen
- France
- c.1720-1725
- P378
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLA young woman seated in a kitchen inspects herself for fleas, a scene intended primarily to titillate.
The figure has been added by Lancret to an earlier, probably Flemish painting. It originally showed an interior with an empty chair and a dog that was examining the seat of the chair. Lancret added the female figure and the still-life on the table to the right and changed the back of the chair. Dendrochronological analysis of the board suggests that the original painting was not painted before the 1680s.An earlier attribution of the interior to Willem Kalf is unfounded. The figure can on stylistic grounds be attributed to Lancret. Similar cases of older (or, in fact, contemporary) paintings that were embellished by French figure painters were very common in eighteenth-century collections and are documented in numerous sale catalogues. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these figures were often removed, even if they had been painted by very important painters, because they were seen as later additions. The Wallace Collection painting is a rare survival of this once common practice.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Mademoiselle de Camargo (Mlle. Camargo)
- France
- 1730
- P393
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLMarie-Anne Cuppi de Camargo was one of the most important dancers of the eighteenth century, a member of the first generation of female lead dancers on French stages. Lancret painted the Wallace Collection portrait as a model for the engraver Laurent Cars who published the engraving of the same size in 1730. Because of the great success; Lancret painted a similar portrait of Camargo's main rival, Maria Sallé in 1731/1732 (Rheinsberg, Schloss, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg) that was engraved by Nicolas de Larmessin and published with verses by Voltaire. Lancret's first Camargo portrait was probably a large Fête galante in Washington that included the dancing Camargo, he equally included Sallé in a larger Fête galante in Berlin. Two almost identical autograph versions of the Wallace Collection Camargo portrait are now in Nantes and in St Petersburg. The combination of Camargo and Sallé stressed their different dance styles - athletic in the case of Camargo, graceful for Sallé.
The two paintings were together in important eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections (Leriget de la Faye, Cottin, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, Pereire), before they were separated.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- An Italian Comedy Scene
- France
- c.1734
- P401
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLLancret depicts characters of the Commedia dell'arte off stage but acting according to their stage roles. The commedia dell’arte character Harlequin is shown in typically pantomimic pose propositioning a reluctant Colombine. To the left a group of seated young women mock the ridiculous preening stance of Harlequin’s rival Polichinelle. While Watteau was particularly interested in the tension between personality and role, Lancret has his characters act according to their stage persona, but continues Watteau's innovation to show the actors off stage.
The whole recalls Lancret’s training with the theatrical painter Claude Gillot. The painting originally had a pendant, depicting a flute player, last recorded in a sale in New York in 1912.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Women Bathing
- France
- c.1718 - c.1720
- P408
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe main focus of attention is centred upon a woman looking for fleas. Her semi-naked bathing companions on the right add a further note of erotic voyeurism. Artistic prototypes for such scenes, although veiled discreetly beneath allegorical or mythological references to classical nymphs or goddesses, occur in Dutch and Flemish art of the previous century. Bathers had not been part of the vocabulary of the Fête galante in Watteau's work, but were introduced into the new genre by Pater and Lancret. Lancret painted numerous scenes of female bathers.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- The small dog that shakes off money and jewellery (Le petit chien qui secoue de l'argent et des pier
- France
- c. 1737 - 1738
- P409
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLTaken from a story in La Fontaine’s 'Contes', part III, verse xiv. Anselme, a magistrate of Mantua, goes on an embassy to Rome leaving his wife Argie behind. Her lover Atis reaches her room with the help of the fairy Manto that is transformed into a Spaniel that only has to shake itself to produce jewels and coins.
The picture is one of twelve illustrations to the Contes painted by Lancret. They served as models for engraved illustrations of Lafontaine, the so-called 'Suite Larmessin', that comprised a total of 38 engravings after seven painters that were published between 1733 and 1743. The series had been begun after paintings by Jean-Baptiste Pater; Lancret took over providing the models after Pater's death in 1736.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- A Gallant Conversation (Conversation galante)
- France
- 1719
- P422
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe commedia dell’arte characters Mezzetin, Pierrot and Colombine, the last two wearing matching silver-grey costumes, are seated with other figures in contemporary dress in a parkland setting. The open-air setting, elegantly dressed figures and the mixture of contemporary fashion and theatre costumes are typical for the nascent Fête galante.
This painting might be one of two reception pieces which Lancret produced to be admitted as painter of Fêtes galantes to the Academy in 1719. An engraving after the painting was made by Jacque-Philippe Le bas, but the dimensions indicated differ. It is therefore not clear whether the Wallace Collection painting is Lancret's actual reception piece or another version of the composition. Lancret was the first painter who was admitted with this speciality, after Watteau had been admitted as a history painter in 1717.
'A Gallant Conversation (Conversation galante)' demonstrates Lancret’s early debt to Watteau in subject matter and handling before Lancret developed his own, highly original style and approach. The group on the left is directly taken from Watteau's 'Voulez-vous triompher des Belles' (P387). It has recently been suggested that Lancret worked very briefly with Watteau.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- The Bird Catchers
- France
- c.1738
- P436
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe painting and its pendant, P478, depict love in two different ways. This painting takes the bird hunt as an obvious erotic allegory, whereas its pendant depicts an ideal, contemporary scene of love. The figures in Lancret’s painting wear theatrical costume rather than realistic peasant clothing highlighting the symbolic meaning of the scene. The paintings are fine examples of Lancret's late style. P436 is based on Dutch renderings of games with allegorical overtones. The painter also emulated Netherlandish works in the high finish of the paintings. Very unusually for his work, he painted them on silver-coated copper, a support that helps to highlights this effect.
Both paintings belonged in the eighteenth century to a succession of distinguished owners including César-Gabriel, duc de Praslin and his grandson Antoine-César, duc de Choiseul et Praslin.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Fête in a Wood
- France
- c.1722
- P448
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe painting is one of Lancret's first masterpieces and one of the outstanding French genre paintings from the period. In the clearing of a wood, numerous revellers are shown in contemporary dress and historical costume enjoying the pleasures of a fête: some descend from a carriage, others converse, walk, and take in the sights, while in the background a carrousel turns and on the right servants provide a clear social contrast to the aristocratic guests.
The picture dates from the early 1720s, when Lancret was still deeply influenced by Watteau. Lancret's painting harks back to Flemish scenes of village feasts from the seventeenth century, e. g. by David Teniers. Like in all Fête galante, the earlier template is translated into a contemporary scene, although equally imaginary in character. Lancret created a particularly complicated, multi-figures scene to prove the entire range of his abilities. The framing trees and the lighting easily hold the scene together.
The painting was in the collection of King Stanislas August of Poland in the late eighteenth century.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- The Beautiful Greek (La Belle Grecque)
- France
- c. 1732
- P450
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThis young woman in theatrical pose was engraved under the title 'Le Balle Grecque' by Georg Friedrich Schmidt in 1736. Schmidt also engraved a pendant of a man in Eastern dress called 'The Amorous Turk (Le Turc Amoureux)'. Lancret painted several versions of both paintings from the mid-1720s (another extant one at the Art Institute of Chicago), and it is unclear which version served as the model for Schmidt's print. He also integrated 'La Belle Grecque' into several major Fêtes galantes, but only one scene including the figure of 'Le Turc Amoureux' is known. Lancret's also produced numerous drawings of the woman in the exotic dress, probably all around the same time.
Interest in the East intensified in France after the visit of Mehemet-Effendi, the Ottoman ambassador, to Paris in 1721. Identifications as Greek, Turkish etc. were approximate and reflected the exoticism of the period.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Italian Comedians by a Fountain
- France
- c. 1717-1718
- P465
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe group of commedia dell’arte figures includes the couples Mezzetin and Flaminia, and Silvia and Harlequin, with Pierrot standing behind.
Lancret painted the work not much after the time, when Watteau became a member of the Academy with his 'Pèlerinage à l'Ile de Cythère' (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Lancret adapted to the successful model of Watteau's Fêtes galantes, elegant, peaceful open-air gatherings, often with music and participants in theatre costumes. Lancret's work in c. 1717/20 is particularly close to Watteau, before he finds his own personal idiom. In this case, the group on the right is very close to Watteau's 'Voulez-vous triompher des Belles' (P387). X-Rays of the painting reveal that Lancret considerably changed the setting of the scene, a clear indication that he is experimenting with the new genre of the Fête galante.
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- Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Pastoral Revels
- France
- 1738
- P478
- Small Drawing Room
- Bookmarkable URLThe painting and its pendant, P436, depict love in two different ways. Its painting takes the bird hunt as an obvious erotic allegory, whereas this painting depicts an ideal, contemporary scene of love. The paintings are fine examples of Lancret's late style. Lancret emulated Netherlandish works in the high finish of the two paintings. Very unusually for his work, he painted them on silver-coated copper, a support that helps to highlights this effect.
P478 is a typical Fête galante, an idealised social gathering in the open air as introduced by Antoine Watteau. 'Pastoral Revels' is based on a larger composition that Lancret exhibited at the Salon of 1737 ('Blind Man's Buff (Le Jeu de Colin-Maillard)', Potsdam, Stfitung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, GK I 5608, Schloss Sanssouci). The Wallace and the Potsdam paintings feature similar stairs that are based on the work of architectural painter Jacques de Lajoüe. In the case of the two Wallace Collection pendants, he combined this composition with an allegorical genre scene.
Both paintings belonged in the eighteenth century to a succession of distinguished owners including César-Gabriel, duc de Praslin and his grandson Antoine-César, duc de Choiseul et Praslin.
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- After Nicolas Lancret (1690 - 1743)
- Girls bathing, after Lancret
- France
- c. 1830 - 1870
- M128
- Boudoir Cabinet
- Bookmarkable URLA crass nineteenth-century pastiche in which the head of a voyeuristic young man has been added to a composition derived largely from Lancret's 'Girls Bathing', P408).
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