Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour

French, 1721 - 1746

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chief mistress of Louis XV of France (1721-1764)

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Two pale-skinned women sit together surrounded by five sheep and a dog in a lush forest in this vertical painting. The woman to our right sits slightly above the other, with her arm draped around the shoulders of her companion. The woman to our right wears a low-cut, rose-pink dress with a full skirt and voluminous, gossamer sleeves. Blond curls are pulled back behind a headband, which is adorned over one ear with three large, pink flowers and smaller yellow and blue flowers. She tips her head to our right as she gazes down to her left at her friend. She has blue eyes, flushed cheeks, a delicate nose, and her grapefruit-pink lips curl in a gentle smile. She crosses one knee over the other and leans toward the other woman. Tucked into her side, the second woman looks up at the first in profile facing our right. Her low-cut, lavender-purple dress has a gold shimmer that suggests silk. Her ash-brown curls are pulled back and decorated with small sea-blue flowers. One toe peeks out from her long skirt, and both women are barefoot. The woman in purple holds a white dove on her friend’s lap, and the woman in pink holds a small envelope closed with a shell-pink seal next to the bird. The dove’s wings are slightly outspread, and a blue ribbon is tied around its neck. Just behind the pair, a towering tree with a silvery-gray trunk grows up and off the top edge of the painting. It angles to our left, and green branches hang down into the picture. To our right of the tree, a rectangular sand-brown stone structure is topped with a male lion carved from the same stone, near the upper right corner. The ground beneath the women is covered with moss-green growth and the space around them filled with verdant bushes and plants. A single, cream-colored sheep stands to our right, facing the women, next to a basket of flowers near the lower right corner. Four more sheep stand and lie together beyond the women to our left, while a black-bodied hound with a white muzzle sits watching the women. A pile of broken branches, perhaps forming a fence, lies behind the sheep. Grassy hills and trees become hazy in the distance beyond, and the sky above is slate blue with a few white and pale pink clouds. The upper and lower right corners and the lower left corner are deep in shade. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the stone in the shadow just below the lion, “f. Boucher 1750.”
François Boucher, The Love Letter, 1750, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.3

The Love Letter

François Boucher · 1750 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1960.6.3

A nude woman and three small, winged children gather among bushes and lush vegetation at the edge of a clear pool in this vertical painting. All four have pale skin and blond hair. The children are pudgy with baby-like proportions and have short gray and blue wings. The woman half reclines on swaths of white, pale pink, and peacock-blue fabric draped across the bushes or the ground. She leans her torso to our left and leans toward that elbow, which is propped up on the fabric. The toes of her right foot, on our left, brush the ground near the water, and her other leg is angled to continue the diagonal created by her elbow and torso. Two white doves nestle by her lower foot. Her ash-blond hair is bound up with pearls, and she has rosy cheeks, pink bow lips, and smooth skin. She reaches across her body and down to our left to touch a nearly nude young boy. He wears a butter-yellow garment pulled up around his chest, perhaps by the woman. A quiver of arrows hangs from a blue ribbon at his side, and he raises his hands before him, toward the woman's arm. To our right, one of the other children reclines on the pink and blue drapery and faces the woman in profile. The third child leans forward from the bushes behind the reclining child. The bushes and trees of the lush forest around the figures creates a V-shape with the people at the center. Vibrant blue sky fills the upper left quarter of the painting.
François Boucher, The Bath of Venus, 1751, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.2

The Bath of Venus

François Boucher · 1751 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.2