Nicolas Lancret, 'The Four Ages of Man: Youth', about 1733-4
About the work
Overview
This is the third of Lancret’s series of paintings depicting The Four Ages of Man and represents Youth (La Jeunesse).
Three pairs of lovers embrace one another in a woodland glade. In the foreground, two archers are engaged in a game of ‘pape-guay’, which involves shooting at an imitation bird (usually a parrot) placed on top of a long pole. The two apparently unattached women watching in the background might be read as the targets for the arrows aimed by the archers, as arrows are associated with Cupid, the god of love.
Usually the third subject of The Four Ages of Man is maturity, represented by settled married couples. We do not know why Lancret instead chose to represent this scene of young playful lovers. Such encounters in woodland settings had become a popular theme in art, inspired in particular by the paintings of Watteau and prints after them.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Four Ages of Man: Youth
- Artist
- Nicolas Lancret
- Artist dates
- 1690 - 1743
- Part of the series
- The Four Ages of Man
- Date made
- about 1733-4
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 34.3 × 45.2 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Lt-Col John Harvey Ollney, 1837
- Inventory number
- NG103
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
Provenance
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Humphrey Wine, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings’, London 2018; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Bibliography
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1875E. Bocher, Les graveurs françaises du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1875
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1924G. Wildenstein, Lancret, Paris 1924
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1946Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, London 1946
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1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
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1991M.T. Holmes, Nicolas Lancret, 1690-1743 (exh. cat. Frick Collection, 19 November 1991 - 12 January 1992; Kimbell Art Museum, 15 February - 12 April 1992), New York 1991
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1995F. Gétreau, 'Les tableaux et les dessins français du XVIIIe siècle', Gazette des beaux-arts, CXXXVII, 1995, pp. 177-90
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1997E. Langmuir, Allegory, London 1997
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2018Wine, Humphrey, National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings, London 2018
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
About the series: The Four Ages of Man

Overview
Lancret treats the traditional subject of The Four Ages of Man as a series of contemporary genre scenes – Childhood, Adolescence, Youth and Old Age.
In Childhood (L'Enfance), a group of wealthy children play boisterous games in an open-air loggia watched by their nurse and governess. In Adolescence (L’Adolescence), a young woman admires herself in a mirror while her hair is decorated with ribbons and flowers. Instead of depicting the third age as a time of maturity and showing a middle-aged married couple, Lancret paints several pairs of lovers in a woody glade, and entitles the picture Youth (La Jeunesse). In Old Age (La Vieillesse), he dispenses with the usual depiction of old people warming themselves indoors before an open fire to take the scene outdoors.
The set was engraved in reverse by Nicolas de Larmessin III in 1735. Most of the numerous painted copies were copied from the prints and are also shown in reverse.