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| Marguerite Gérard First Steps ca. 1788 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| François Boucher Triumph of Venus 1740 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
"From a humble background, Boucher initially supported himself as a printmaker and designer of book illustrations. Around 1726-28 he was employed by Jean de Jullienne (1686-1766) making etchings after drawings by Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). These activities eventually financed his trip to Italy in 1728, where his interests seem to have been largely focused on masters of the Baroque. . . . Returning to Paris around 1731, Boucher increasingly turned his attention to large-scale mythological painting and soon found official recognition in the form of royal commissions and membership in the Royal Academy, where he was received in 1734. His wide-ranging production soon graced the walls of an equally wide-ranging clientele, from King Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, and Count Carl Gustav Tessin, Swedish ambassador to Paris, to bourgeois collectors of much more modest means. In 1765 he was appointed to the two highest positions in the French arts establishment: first painter to the king and director of the Royal Academy."
– biographical notes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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| Jean-Honoré Fragonard Blind Man’s Buff ca. 1750-52 oil on canvas Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Jean-Baptiste Pater Fête Champêtre with Italian comedians ca. 1720-30 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Louis Gauffier Cleopatra and Octavian 1787 oil on canvas National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh |
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| Jean-Baptiste Regnault Death of Cleopatra 1796-97 oil on canvas Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
CLEOPATRA VII (69-30 BC) – the final and best known of the Ptolemies, was daughter of Ptolemy XII. On the latter's death in 51 she became queen, alone at first and subsequently with her younger brothers, first Ptolemy XIII (who opposed Caesar) and then (47-45) with Ptolemy XIV. A joint reign with Ptolemy XV Caesar (Caesarion, reputedly Caesar's son) is recorded from 45 BC. Her later children by Mark Antony were the twins Alexander and Cleopatra (born 40 BC after Antony's winter in Alexandria) and Ptolemy Philadelphus (born 36). . . . Best known for her successful relations first with Julius Caesar, who besieged and captured Alexandria in 48-47, and later with Antony, following a colorful encounter at Tarsus in 41, she managed to increase her kingdom territorially in return for financial support. Caesar restored Cyprus to Egypt and in 34, in a magnificent ceremony at Alexandria, Cleopatra appeared as Isis to mark the division of the earlier kingdom of Alexander the Great between the royal couple and their children. Cleopatra ruled Egypt and Caesarion Cyprus as Queen of Kings and King of Kings; Antony's children Alexander Helios (the Sun) and Ptolemy Philadelphus were named kings east and west of the Euphrates respectively, with Cleopatra Selene (the Moon) queen of Cyrene. The symbolism of the ceremony was more important than any reality."
"Internally Cleopatra was strong, using her position as pharaoh to gain backing from all the people. To her title of Philopator ('father-loving') was added Philopatris ('loving her country'), and her support for the traditional Egyptian bull-cults is recorded at both Memphis and Armant. In the final struggle against Octavian, however, she confiscated temple lands. In Greek she was known also as Thea Neotera, the 'younger goddess'. An expert linguist, she was reportedly the first Ptolemy to have known Egyptian, and Plutarch reports it was her conversation rather than her looks which formed the secret of her success."
– from The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edition (1996), edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth
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| François-André Vincent Zeuxis choosing models for the image of Helen of Troy from among the girls of Croton ca. 1786-96 oil on canvas Cantor Center, Stanford University |
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| Anne Vallayer-Costa Attributes of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture 1769 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Vegetables for the Soup ca. 1732 oil on canvas Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Philippe Mercier Sense of Hearing ca. 1744-47 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
"Philippe Mercier was born in Berlin in 1689, the son of Pierre Mercier and of Marie Biendovienne. According to George Vertue, he studied under Antoine Pesne in Berlin, subsequently going on a tour of Italy and France. In 1716 he came to England, recommended by the court of Hanover, and settled on Saint Martin's Street, in the French quarter of London. . . . In 1729 Mercier was appointed Principal Painter to Frederick, Prince of Wales, subsequently being appointed Gentleman Page of the Bedchamber (1729) and Library Keeper (1730). Frederick, a cultivated connoisseur, patronized a number of artists; Mercier was jealous of his own position, quarrels ensued, and in 1736 he was replaced by John Ellys. After a short period in Northhamptonshire he took lodgings on the piazza at Covent Garden from 1737 to 1739. Unable to compete with the new portraiture of Jean-Baptiste Vanloo, Ramsay, and others, Mercier originated the genre of the fancy picture, sentimentalized figures engaged chiefly in domestic occupations, intended for a wide market through engraving and mezzotint."
– biographical notes from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
The five paintings by Philippe Mercier reproduced here from the Yale Center for British Art represent a suite of such "fancy pictures" created in the 1740s and notionally unified by the theme of the five senses. Early works by this artist were often (with high hopes but wrongly) attributed to Watteau – an error no longer possible with pictures in Mercier's late style, like these.
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| Philippe Mercier Sense of Sight ca. 1744-47 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Philippe Mercier Sense of Smell ca. 1744-47 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Philippe Mercier Sense of Taste ca. 1744-47 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Philippe Mercier Sense of Touch ca. 1744-47 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |