Rococo

Head of Emma Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl is a 1792 portrait painting by French Rococo artist Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun. Head of Emma Hamilton as the Cumaean Sibyl Analysis Emma Hamilton was a famous aristocratic socialite who was well known for her elaborate tableaux vivants or stage shows depicting scenes in the dress of antiquity. Here …

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French Rococo artist Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun painted the portrait Emma Hamilton as a Bacchante Élisabeth in 1792. Louise Vigée-Lebrun fled France at the outbreak of the French Revolution as her friendship with Queen Marie Antoinette would have placed her in danger. The artist traveled across Europe to Naples where she obtained shelter thanks to that …

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Marie Antoinette and her Children is a 1787 family portrait by French Rococo painter Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun. Analysis of Marie Antoinette and her Children The deeply unpopular French Queen Marie Antoinette and her Children are shown to us by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun as an attempt to recoup Marie Antoinette’s reputation. This picture, painted in 1787 was commissioned …

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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo has been seen as the most capable painter of the Venetian Rococo school of the eighteenth century, which is on display in Juno and Luna from 1735-45. In this mature work, he presents the elevated theme of two goddesses from the Roman tradition as Luna, the goddess of the moon, makes a …

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Painted between 1755 and 1760, Apollo Pursuing Daphne is a mythological painting by Italian Rococo artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Analysis of Tiepolo’s Apollo Pursuing Daphne Apollo, the god of poetry, wisdom, and archery, was shot by a golden arrow, and Daphne, the woodland nymph, with a lead arrow by an offended Eros. This caused the …

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The Empire of Flora is Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s version of the Roman Springtime festival Floralis and simultaneously a vision of a perpetual Spring in a land reigned over by the goddess. Flora was a goddess of fertility and the onset of natural growth in the Roman year and is placed right of center on her …

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Thomas Gainsborough, the English society portraitist of the 18th-century painted in 1754 the Gravenor Family resplendent in their upper-class clothing in a dark landscape. The sheen from the dresses contrasts with and helps emphasize the descending browns and greys of the clouds, and helps the scene be seen as such, i.e. a stage for the …

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In The See-Saw, painted between 1750 and 1755 we can see the Rococo concern with the fete galante or the scene of upper-class leisure. Jean Honoré Fragonard painted a number of similar paintings with sexual undertones, most notably The Swing some 15 years later in 1768. Jean Honoré Fragonard’s The See-Saw is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza …

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The Musical Contest, painted in 1755 by Jean Honoré Fragonard is in the Rococo tradition of French art. This tradition focused on the softness of execution and colors pleasing to the eye. The angle of the woman’s parasol and that of the tree form a triangle or pyramid that lends balance and stability to the …

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French Rococo artist Jean Honoré Fragonard painted this portrait of François-Henri d’Harcourt, a French General in 1789. One of 14 other ‘fantasy portraits’ – Fragonard painted pictures of his friends and peers in a fast and loose manner, said to have been executed in under an hour, with brushstrokes that are a pre-cursor to Impressionism …

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In this portrait of Countess Anna Vorontsova from Russia, Dimitry Levitzky expertly portrays the active and happy intelligence of the child. Countess Vorontsova would go on to display, by all accounts an able mind that was admired. The good-humoured curiosity painted here would be applied to her work as an artist in later life, especially …

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Portrait of Jane Fleming is a 1778 painting by Joshua Reynolds, the most eminent classical painter of the English eighteenth century. Analysis of Portrait of Jane Fleming Here Joshua Reynolds produces this full-length aristocratic portrait of Jane Fleming, who was the Lady of the Bedchamber for Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who later …

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The Young Schoolmistress by French eighteenth-century master of genre painting Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin was painted in 1740 at age of 40. The mood is one of quiet but intense concentration as the young woman looks to her charge who is fixated on her learning. Chardin specialised in paintings of basic household activities. Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin’s …

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Monk Talking to an Old Woman is a particularly disturbing work by Spanish master Francisco Goya (1746-1828) painted in 1825 towards the end of his ‘Black Period’ and therefore is suitably colored in shadowy and foreboding tones. The monk seems to be sharing with the woman perhaps the dangers of sin or damnation and the …

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The Graham Children is a 1742 family portrait painting by English Rococo artist William Hogarth. Analysis of Hogarth’s The Graham Children The Graham Children is a 1742 painting by William Hogarth which depicts the four children of Daniel Graham. Graham was an apothecary, a type of early pharmacist, to both King George II and King …

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The Parasol, by Spanish court painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was commissioned by the future King Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma, in 1777 for their dining room in the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid. As such, this painting of oil on linen depicts a scene of leisure in which the seated lady …

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Self Portrait with Dr. Arrieta is an 1820 portrait painting by Spanish Rococo artist Francisco Goya. Analysis of Self-Portrait of Dr Arrieta Francisco Goya suffered from ill health for the last half of his life, eventually going completely deaf and Self Portrait with Dr Arrieta is of his carer. During an episode of serious illness …

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Mrs. Mary Robinson was one of the most renowned actresses and poets in 18th-century England and Thomas Gainsborough painted her portrait in 1781. A one-time mistress of the Prince of Wales who was to succeed George IV, Robinson was propelled to fame for both her private liaison and her exploits on the stage and on …

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Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Pierrot is of famous clown Pierrot in the 17th century. Originally known simply as ‘Gilles’ – the generic term for ‘clown’ in French, recent research has identified that the character in the picture is in fact of Pierrot. Pierrot is a fictional character that was popular in the late 17th century and featured …

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This Portrait of Jacques Cazotteby Jean Baptiste Perronneau is in the traditional French style of portraiture, however, is intriguingly informal with the sitter smiling and looking off to his right. It was painted sometime in the 1760s. The sitter is a French writer of poems and novels Jacques Cazotte, who some 30 years after being …

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