Skip to Main Content

Dive deeper

François-Hubert Drouais dated his life-size informal family portrait 1 April 1756, thereby revealing a hidden meaning. In the medieval calendar New Year’s Day coincided with the vernal equinox of 25 March, and 1 April, which marked the beginning of Spring, was celebrated with festivities and gift-giving. After the Gregorian calendar of 1582 proclaimed 1 January as New Year’s Day, the tradition of exchanging springtime gifts on 1 April continued and is still celebrated today, albeit in a rather distilled form as April Fool’s Day. The springtime exchange of gifts is elaborately displayed in Drouais’ work: the little girl presents flowers to her mother, the husband reads a letter or sonnet to his wife, and the wife, while arranging flowers in her daughter’s hair, also points to their child as a symbolic gift to her husband.

Drouais does not provide enough specific information for us to identify his sitters, but he does give an intimate view into the boudoir. Neither husband nor wife are fully dressed; she wears a smock to prevent powder from spoiling her dress, and he wears a silken housecoat embroidered with fashionable oriental motifs. Like his master Boucher, Drouais relishes in the display of contrasting tones and sumptuous colors.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 244 x 195 cm (96 1/16 x 76 3/4 in.)

framed: 281.9 x 224.8 x 21 cm (111 x 88 1/2 x 8 1/4 in.)

Accession Number

1946.7.4

Artists / Makers

François-Hubert Drouais (artist) French, 1727 - 1775

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Detail Information

Inscription

lower right on box lid: Fs.Drouais.ce 1 avril. 1756

Provenance

(Wertheimer, London);[1] purchased 1889 by Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, 1st baron Masham [1815-1906], Swinton Park, near Bedale, Yorkshire;[2] by inheritance to his son, Samuel Cunliffe Cunliffe-Lister, 2nd baron Masham [1857-1917], Swinton Park; by inheritance to his brother, John Cunliffe Cunliffe-Lister, 3rd baron Masham [1867-1924], Swinton Park; by inheritance to his cousin, Lady Lloyd-Greame [née Mary Constance Boynton, later Viscountess Swinton, d. 1974], Swinton Park; purchased November 1936 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris, stock no, 29845);[3] purchased 1942 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1946 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1902
Exhibition of a Selection of Works by French and English Painters of the Eighteenth Century, Art Gallery of the Corporation of London, 1902, no. 18.
1925
Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Old Masters, Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, 1925, no. 9 as, A Family Group.
1936
Masterpieces from the Collections of Yorkshire and Durham, City Art Gallery, Leeds, 1936, no. 29.
1937
Chefs d'oeuvre de L'art français, Palais National Des Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 152, as Portrait de Famille.
1940
Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 197, repro. as A Family Group of the Louis XV Period.
1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 769.
1994
A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Seattle Art Museum; Calif. Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1994-1995, no. 53.

Bibliography

1902
Phillips, Claude. "French and English Art at the Guildhall." Daily Telegraph (21 June 1902).
1906
Gabillot, Claude. "Les trois Drouais." Paris, 1906: 89. Reprint of Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 3, 34 (1905); ser. 3, 35 (1906).
1913
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 1(1913):302.
1925
Collins-Baker, C. H. "Old Masters at Messrs. Agnew." The Burlington Magazine 46, no. 267 (June 1925): 300.
1937
Huyghe, René. La peinture française du XIVe au XVIIe siècle: (figures et portraits). Paris, 1937: pl. 16 (detail of girl's head).
1940
Frankfurter, Alfred M. "383 Masterpieces of Art: The World's Fair Exhibition of Paintings of Four Centuries Loaned from American Public and Private Collections." Art News 38 (25 May 1940): 37, 64, repro.
1940
"Masterpieces of Art Provide Brilliant Display at New York Fair." Art Digest 17 (1 June 1940): 7.
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 112, color repro.
1944
Frankfurter, Alfred. "French Masterpieces for the National Gallery." Art News 42, no. 10 (August 1944): 8, 24, repro.
1944
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 78, repro. no. 80.
1944
"Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5.
1944
"One of the Greatest Donations of XVIIIth Century French Painting Ever Received by a Museum - The Kress Collection." Illustrated London News 115, no. 2992 (26 August 1944): 248, 249, repro.
1944
Richardson, E.P. "A Family Group by Drouais in the National Gallery." Art Quarterly 7 (Summer 1944): 224-227, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 165, repro.
1951
King, Marian. Portfolio Number 3. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: no. 7, color repro.
1956
Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth-Century Pictures in Washington." Gazette des Beaux Arts6th ser., 47, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 230-231, n. 17, fig. 14.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 39, 50, fig. 18, pl. 128 (detail).
1959
Cooke, Hereward Lester. French Paintings of the 16th-18th Centuries in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Four in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 36, color repro.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 360, repro.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 317, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 43.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:318, color repro.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 37, repro.
1968
Verlet, Pierre. The Eighteenth-Century House in France: Society, Decoration, Furniture. Rutland, Vermont, 1968: 85, pl. 58.
1973
Duncan, Carol. "Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in French Art." The Art Bulletin 55 (December 1973): 578, 579, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 110, repro.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 322-323, fig. 285, as Family Portrait (April Fool's Day 1756).
1979
Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part IV." Apollo 110 (July 1979): 49 [241].
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 326, no. 433, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 135, repro.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 171, repro.
1995
Ribeiro, Aileen. The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750 to 1820. New Haven and London, 1995: 35, 50, fig. 35.
1996
Posner, Donald. "The 'Duchesse de Velours' and Her Daughter: A Masterpiece by Nattier and Its Historical Context." Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 31 (1996): 139, fig. 11.
1996
Sahut, Marie-Catherine. "Louis-Michel Van Loo...Potrait du marquis de Margny (1727-1781) et de sa femme, née Marie-Françoise Constance Julie Filleul (1751-1822)." In Musée du Louvres: nouvelles acquisitions du département des pictures 1991-1995. Paris, 1996: 154, repro.
1997
Donzel, Catherine. Le Livre des Fleurs, France, 1997: 85, repro.
1999
Ranum, Orest. "Intimacy in French Eighteenth-Century Family Portraits." Word and Image 6, no. 4 (October-December 1999): 359, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 251, no. 202, color repro.
2009
Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 27, 136-142, color repro.
2011
Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. "Dressing to Impress: The Morning Toilette and the Fabrication of Femininity." In Bremer-David, Charissa, ed., Paris: Life and Luxury in the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., J. Paul, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011: 58-59, color repro.
2023
Lasic, Barbara. "A transatlantic hybrid and a 'Fauve de la Curiosité':: Edouard Jonas (1883-1961), dealer and curator." Conalghi Studies Journal 12 (March 2023): 61, fig. 5.

Related Content

  • Sort by:
  • Results layout:
Show  results per page
The image compare list is empty.