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A Lady in a Garden having Coffee with Children:
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Entry details

Full title
A Lady in a Garden having Coffee with Children
Artist
Nicolas Lancret
Inventory number
NG6422
Author
Humphrey Wine
Extracted from
The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London, 2018)

Catalogue entry

, 2018

Extracted from:

Humphrey Wine, The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018).
Humphrey Wine and Virginia Napoleone, Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings in the National Gallery: Appendix to ‘The National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (London: National Gallery Company, 2018).

© The National Gallery, London

Probably

Oil on canvas, 89.2 × 97.3 cm

Provenance

Bought in 1860 by Samuel Jones Loyd (1796–1883; created Baron Overstone, 1849)1 of 2 Carlton Gardens, London, and Overstone Park, near Northampton;2 by inheritance to his son‐in‐law Robert James Lindsay (1832–1901, who assumed the name Loyd‐Lindsay in 1858 and was created Baron Wantage of Lockinge in 1885) and to his only surviving child, Harriet Sarah Loyd‐Lindsay (née Loyd) (1837–1920), both of 2 Carlton Gardens, London and of Lockinge House, near Wantage, Berkshire;3 on Lady Wantage’s death in 1920, inherited together with Lockinge House (where NG 6422 was recorded in the drawing room in July 1936)4 by a cousin, Arthur Thomas Loyd (1882–1944);5 sold by order of the executor of Arthur Thomas Loyd deceased, Sotheby & Co., 28 November 1945, lot 88, £12,500; bought by Agnew’s, London for Sir John Heathcoat‐Amory, 3rd Baronet (1894–1972)6 of Knightshayes, near Tiverton, Devon;7 bequeathed by him to the National Gallery in accordance with a previous promise,8 subject to a life interest to Lady Joyce Heathcoat‐Amory (née Wethered) (1901–1997),9 who renounced her interest in 1973.

Exhibitions

Paris Salon 1742 (50), or an autograph replica of the same size as no. 49, a portrait of the actor, Grandval 10 (‘Autre d’environ la même grandeur [4 pieds sur 3 & demi de large] représentant une Dame dans un jardin, prenant du Caffé avec des Enfans’); London 1898 (84, there described as ‘A Garden Party’ and as lent by Lord Wantage); London 1913 (16, there called ‘La Tasse de Chocolat’, as lent by Lady Wantage),11 London 1925 (24); London 1932 (225, as ‘La Tasse de Chocolat’, lent by Arthur Thomas Loyd, Wantage), and Commemorative Catalogue 1933, no. 190 and pl. 53;12 Oxford 1934–5 (3); King’s Lynn 1965 (16); London 1968 (383); New York and Fort Worth 1991–2 (18); London, Norwich and Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne 1997; Bristol and Bolton 2001; Ottawa, Washington and Berlin 2003–4 (17).

No related drawings by Lancret are known, nor was any print made after NG 6422.

Technical Notes

The support is a plain‐weave canvas with an average thread‐count of 14 horizontal and 12 vertical threads. As there are no selvedges, it is difficult to tell which is warp and which weft. It was lined sometime before the painting’s acquisition by the Gallery, since when it has not been treated. There is some wear of the surface paint throughout, some flattening of the paint through lining of the canvas, small abrasions in the tree at left, the servant’s legs and at the edges, a small loss near the centre about a third of the way down the canvas, and a few small filled holes in the canvas near the bottom. The ultraviolet fluorescence photograph shows evidence of retouchings (not necessarily to cover losses) along the edges and in the upper right corner, as well as scattered retouchings mainly in the trees behind the ornamental pond.

The ground of most of the composition is a pale grey colour. However, the infrared reflectogram (fig. 1) shows curved areas in the upper corners which are darker than the rest of the sky, where the ground is a lightish brown. Other areas that appear dark in the infrared reflectogram are the middle parts of the left and right edges and the bottom corners. These correspond with shapes visible in the X‐radiograph and indicate that the canvas was first stretched onto a shaped support, probably for incorporation into a decorative scheme, before being re‐stretched to a rectangular shape. Pigment analysis reveals that the same type of early Prussian blue as was used for the sky in the top corners was used elsewhere in the painting, indicating that the re‐stretching occurred early in the life of NG 6422.

The infrared reflectogram shows some underdrawing, clearest in the figures, consisting of simple outlines made with paint that are difficult to distinguish from outlines in the surface paint, except where the figure was later changed, for example the mother’s left foot. It also shows changes made during the painting of the picture, some also visible to the naked eye. These changes fall into two categories: those to the hands, feet and draperies of the figures and the positions of the heads of the children, the elder of which appears to have two sets of eyes, and changes made when the canvas was re‐stretched to a rectangular shape. A large building and tree in the background behind the figures at the left was then painted out and the manservant was moved towards the new left edge of the canvas. Also evident from the infrared reflectogram is the fact that the dog was painted over the architecture, and the doll painted over the foreground. Between the two was some unidentified object that looks like the stem of a goblet lying on its side. The blue and white flowers, which were painted over the dog, must have been added by Lancret last of all.

The back of the stretcher bears the following marks or labels: (1) ‘G MORRILL’;13 (2) ‘Thos Agnew & Sons Ltd / No 11629 / Fine Art Publishers to HM King George V / London / 43 Old Bond St / Piccadilly W’; (3) ‘Thos Agnew & Sons Ltd / W.O. 0441 / 73’; (4) in pencil, ‘119’; (5) in ink, ‘WO /9399/2’; (6) in ink, on what is possibly only a fragment of a label, ‘19’; (7) in white chalk, ‘CAT 383’ (see Exhibitions, London 1968); (8) in pencil, ‘Glos 38/4 x’ (which may be the partial record of a measurement).

The back of the frame bears the following labels: (1) inscribed in ink on a nineteenth‐century (?) label with a blue border, ‘L [illegible] [? illegible]’; (2) a circular, perforated label on which no writing is visible; (3) ‘Department of Fine Art / Oxford, / Loan Exhibition Of Lockinge House Pictures No. 3 / 1934/5’; (4) ‘Painter or School–’; in manuscript, ‘Lancret / Date of Arrival’; in manuscript, ‘8 April 1946’.

[page 301] [page 302]
Fig. 1

Infrared reflectogram of NG 6422. © The National Gallery, London

[page 303]

Discussion

When NG 6422 was exhibited at the Frick Collection in 1991–2 Mary Tavener Holmes noted that its traditional title (La Tasse de chocolat) was a misnomer because the silver pot held by the servant was a coffee pot.14 Although the Encyclopédie illustrated a pot somewhat similar in shape to that in NG 6422 as ‘une caffetière brune propre à faire toutes sortes de liqueurs’ (‘an earthenware cafetière appropriate for making all sorts of drink’),15 and Nicolas de Blegny had written that a pot of similar design could be used indifferently for coffee, tea, or chocolate,16 he illustrated pots of quite different shape for tea as opposed to coffee. The pot in NG 6422 broadly conforms to that illustrated by de Blegny for coffee.17 On the evidence of Boucher’s Morning Coffee (fig. 2), which shows that, at least in well‐off households, differently shaped pots were used for each drink, tea can be excluded. As regards the possibility that the pot in NG 6422 is for chocolate, it has been proposed that it is being used for coffee because the sucrier on the tray would have only accompanied coffee.18 It does indeed seem to be the case that when sugar was added to chocolate it was done in the making, or sometimes after it was served, but in either case in powder rather than lump form.19 Thus the lumps of sugar shown here exclude the possibility that the drink being consumed is chocolate. If there remains any doubt about its identity as coffee, the description of the painting (or perhaps of the version exhibited of which NG 6422 is an autograph replica)20 in the livret of the 1742 Salon (‘A lady in a garden having coffee with children’) should dispel it. Drinking coffee was advised during the morning and after lunch.21 The presence of summer flowering hollyhocks at bottom right and the direction of light in NG 6422 suggestt that a morning scene is shown.

The pot in NG 6422 is similar to a silver coffee pot on tripod legs with a blackened pearwood handle made between 1730 and 1732 by Gabriel Tillet (Bordeaux, Musée des arts décoratifs). Although that example was made in Bordeaux, a similar design was used throughout France for heating drinks,22 albeit sometimes made from a less precious material than silver. De Blegny had observed that people of quality who drank coffee for pleasure rather than for medical reasons usually had it served on coffee trays, in cups made of glass, porcelain or faience.23 In NG 6422 the sucrier and the cups and saucers appear to be of early eighteenth‐century Saint‐Cloud soft‐paste porcelain.24

The question of whether NG 6422 is a family portrait or a genre picture has been discussed by Holmes25 and more recently by Gage.26 Both concluded that it was a genre picture, Holmes on account of the description of the picture (or the exhibited version)27 in the 1742 Salon livre t . This refers to ‘des Enfans’ rather than ‘ses Enfans’, as one might more likely expect were a portrait being signalled. That point, however, is not conclusive and Gage’s reason for rejecting the painting as a portrait, namely that none of the protagonists intimates any awareness of the beholder, is perhaps more persuasive. It is the case that even where in group portraits of the period none of the sitters makes eye contact with the beholder, for example Hogarth’s The Strode Family (about 1738) and the same artist’s Ashley Cowper with his Wife and Daughter (1731),28 there are strong elements of posing. Such is not the case in NG 6422, in which the protagonists are shown interacting naturally, apparently unaware of the viewer. Holmes, moreover, rightly pointed out the resemblance in subject matter between NG 6422 and François Boucher’s then recently painted Morning Coffee (fig. 2), a painting that Laing has correctly concluded was more probably a genre picture than a family portrait.29

Fig. 2

François Boucher, Morning Coffee, 1739. Oil on canvas, 81.5 × 65.5 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. PARIS Musée du Louvre © RMN‐Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

It has been suggested that the subject matter of Morning Coffee indicates the importance attached in affluent families to the education of a child’s taste in the consumption of coffee.30 By extension the same could be argued in respect of NG 6422. Laing noted that Boucher’s painting appeared at auction accompanied by two genre images of high society by Jean‐François de Troy.31 Hence, although there is no evidence that Lancret was aware of the composition of Boucher’s painting – the child’s doll near the right‐hand bottom corner of both paintings as well as their similar subject matter may be no more than coincidence – NG 6422, like Boucher’s painting, should be regarded as participating in the vogue in Paris for such genre images, of which the main creator during the 1720s and 1730s was Jean‐François de Troy.32 The probability that NG 6422 was originally configured as if it were part of a decorative scheme (see Technical [page 304] Notes) also makes it more likely to be a genre painting than a portrait. If indeed it was first conceived as part of such a scheme, no suitable companion(s) have been identified. However, given that Lancret’s Le Repas de chasse and Les Plaisirs du bain (both Paris, Louvre, invs RF 1990‐19 and RF 1990‐20) have been shown to have been part of the same decorative scheme, despite that fact that they are not self‐evidently related iconographically nor (now) of the same size,33 technical analysis of paintings in other collections may yield a candidate. In addition, it is conceivable that NG 6422 was intended to partner a painting or paintings by one or more artists other than Lancret.34 If indeed NG 6422 was originally conceived as one of a set, then, given motifs of the young child about to sip coffee and of the dog licking something (on which see below), it is possible that it may once have been planned to represent the sense of Taste in a series of the Five Senses.

Fig. 3

Antoine Watteau, Gersaint’s Shop Sign, 1720, detail. Oil on canvas, 166 × 306 cm. Berlin, Schloss Charlottenburg. BERLIN Schloss Charlottenburg © bpk, Berlin, Dist. RMN‐Grand Palais / Jörg P. Anders

Representations of French high society drinking coffee or chocolate had been in circulation since publication in Paris of gravures de mode in the later seventeenth century.35 The vogue for painting Parisian society at leisure had doubtless been boosted by the exhibition of Watteau’s Gersaint’s Shop Sign (fig. 3).36 Lancret was in Paris in 1720 and if he did not see Watteau’s painting that year, when it was briefly shown above the dealer Gersaint’s shop, he would have had adequate opportunity to familiarise himself with its composition when painting NG 6422, either by direct access to the original when it was in the collection of Jean de Jullienne37 or through the print made after it by Pierre Aveline and published in 1732.38 At all events, the poses of the father and mother in NG 6422 are similar to those of (respectively) the woman leaning on the counter and the vendeuse in Watteau’s work, while Lancret’s servant holding the coffee pot may have started life in Aveline’s [page 305]reverse image of Watteau’s shop‐owner expounding on a work from his stock.39

Another painting by Watteau, Fêtes vénitiennes (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland), also in Jean de Jullienne’s collection when Lancret painted NG 6422,40 as well as the subject of an engraving in reverse made by Laurent Cars in 1732, shares with Lancret’s picture the main architectural motif (with variations of detail) of a curved stone fountain topped with a large urn prominently placed in the picture space. However, the motif of a large, prominent urn had already been used by Lancret in other compositions – La Terre (Madrid, Museo Thyssen‐Bornemisza), painted by 1732;41 Le Jeu de colin‐maillard (Potsdam, château de Sans‐Souci), painted by 1737;42 and La danse dans un parc (London, Wallace Collection), painted in 1738.43 It was also part of a common artistic vocabulary shared by some of Lancret’s contemporaries, such as Jacques de Lajoue and Gilles‐Marie Oppenord.44 In this instance it was more likely Oppenord rather than Watteau to whom Lancret looked for the fountain motif, if indeed he looked anywhere beyond contemporary parkland.45

Lancret also incorporated a large garden urn in his Portrait of the Actor Grandval, which, like NG 6422, was shown at the 1742 Salon, of which a painting in Indianapolis may be a reduced‐size replica (fig. 4).46 Unlike the urn in NG 6422, that in Grandval’s portrait is not overflowing with flowers, although both paintings have abundant flowering plants acting as a repoussoir at bottom right. In addition, as in others of Lancret’s later paintings, the figures in both NG 6422 and the Indianapolis painting have a greater monumentality than in his earlier works.47 The motif of a dog licking, not merely sniffing, something on the ground – which does not occur for example in the work of the animaliers Jean‐Baptiste Oudry or Alexandre‐François Desportes – may also have its origin in another painting by Watteau, Le repas de campagne (whereabouts unknown). This was yet another of the many paintings by Watteau certainly in the Jullienne collection, if not at the time when Lancret painted NG 6422, at least in 1730, when publication of an engraving after it (in reverse?) by Louis Desplaces was announced in the Mercure de France (fig. 5).48 Since dogs sometimes lick urine, usually that of other dogs,49 Lancret may have intended the vulgarity of the motif to be in ironic contrast to that of the elegant family drinking coffee.

One might conclude from the references to works by Watteau, and in particular to those in Jullienne’s collection, that NG 6422 was itself commissioned by Jullienne were it not for the fact that so many of Watteau’s paintings were part of, or passed through, this collection.50 Indeed, it is unclear whether Lancret at this late stage of his career was consciously borrowing from Watteau at all, especially since that artist’s works were scarcely present in his own collection.51 If he did, then it was done with great imagination to create a painting entirely different in tenor and subject matter from anything created by his predecessor, which ‘clearly illustrates the unjustness of Lancret’s dismissal by succeeding generations’.52

Fig. 4

Nicolas Lancret, Portrait of the Actor Grandval, about 1742.Oil on canvas, 68.5 × 85 cm. Indiana, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Gift of Mr and Mrs Herman C. Krannert. INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA Indianapolis Museum of Art © Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana

Prior to the exhibition of NG 6422 in 1991 it attracted little recorded comment. L’abbé Desfontaines noted of Lancret’s pictures generally at the 1742 Salon: ‘M. Watteau’s rival, M. Lancret, has given us some excellent pieces this year. What engaging characters, what lightness of touch in the brushwork, what variety in the manner of using colour! How pleasing is the draughtsmanship! What landscapes! Throughout he is delightful and brilliant.’53 However, an etching and engraving by Jacques‐Philippe Le Bas after Philippe Canot (died 1783), a pupil of Chardin, first published in Paris and Rouen in 1747, is clearly influenced by NG 6422 (fig. 6). In another etching and engraving by Le Bas after Canot entitled Le Gateau des Roys, the figure of the father is (in reverse) close to that of the father in NG 6422.54 The painting then seems to have been unnoticed by commentators until late in the nineteenth century, when Lady Emilia Dilke expressed admiration for Lancret’s use of colour in NG 6422 and opined that ‘Rarely does he give us work as fresh and genial in sentiment’.55 In 1911 Lady Victoria Manners was moved to write that Lancret, ‘by the magic of his brush, transports us into a world whose denizens we feel have left far, far behind The ways of care, / The crowded hurrying hour the dreary and wearisome path of most of the sons of men’.56 The Times’s reviewer of the 1913 exhibition, however, was ambiguous: ‘… the well‐known “Tasse de Chocolat” or “Garden Party”, lent by Lady Wantage, is as good as anything of the kind could be’,57 a sentiment echoing that of C.H. Collins Baker in his review of the 1925 exhibition: ‘as good as you could wish’.58 When NG 6422 was exhibited at the Ashmolean Museum in 1934–5, where it was called ‘A Family Group (“La Tasse de Chocolat”)’, Harold Isherwood Kay, then Keeper and Secretary of the National Gallery, annotated his copy of the [page 306] catalogue: ‘Excellent condition. Yellow varnish. Rather swell. Full Rothschild quality. Fragonard took a lot from this type of Lancret.’ More recently NG 6422 was described as ‘exquisite’ and ‘of excellent quality’, but nevertheless classed as among examples of the type of picture that ‘the Trustees might not actually have wished to buy, given the very high prices they would surely have commanded’.59

Fig. 5

Louis Desplaces after Antoine Watteau, Le repas de campagne, 1730. Engraving, 39.7 × 32.1 cm. Paris, Bibliothèque numérique de l’Institute nationale d’histoire et l’art. PARIS Bibliothèque numérique de l’INHA © Courtesy of Bibliothèque numérique de l’INHA, Paris

The sentiment between the individual protagonists, their solid positioning in space (unlike the precarious‐looking figures in many earlier pictures by Lancret), the compositional balance between the triangle made by the family group and the circle in depth of the fountain, and the play of strong colour across the picture’s surface, place NG 6422 among the artist’s late works (whether or not it was exhibited at the 1742 Salon)60 and justify its status as one of his most accomplished paintings.61

Fig. 6

Jacques‐Philippe Le Bas after Philippe Canot, Le Souhait de la Bonne Année au Grandpapa, 1747. Etching and engraving, 39 × 27.5 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. PARIS Musée du Louvre © RMN‐Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Michel Urtado

General References

[Guiffrey] 1874, p. 39, no. 26; Dilke 1898, p. 334 (as attributed to Lancret); Temple 1898, p. 8 (reproduced); Loyd‐Lindsay 1902, no. 119 (reproduced, as at Lockinge House, Berkshire); Temple 1905, no. 119; Foster 1905, vol. 1, pl. LIII (as belonging to Lady Wantage); Wildenstein 1924, pp. 19, 66, no. 621; [Loyd] 1928, p. 19;62 Commemorative Catalogue 1933, no. 190 and pl. 53; List of the Pictures at Lockinge House, Wantage, July 1936, no. 36;63 The National Gallery 1975, p. 24; Wilson 1985, p. 88; Huot de Saint Albin 2003–4, vol. 2, pp. 310–11, no. 73 (in correctly as still at Knightshayes Court); Levey 1993, pp. 43–4; Sanchez 2004, vol. 2, p. 966.

[page 307]

Notes

1 The date of purchase is given in Loyd‐Lindsay 1902, pp. 79–80; Temple 1905, p. 90; and French Art of the Eighteenth Century 1913. That the picture was bought by Lord Overstone can be inferred from Lady Wantage’s preface to the 1913 catalogue, and the Sotheby’s 1945 sale catalogue states that the picture is ‘From the Collection of Lord Overstone’. (Back to text.)

2 On Lord Overstone see Michael Reed, ‘Loyd, Samuel Jones, Baron Overstone (1796–1883)’, ODNB; Loyd 1971, passim. Overstone was a trustee of the National Gallery from 1850 until 1871, and acted as chairman on most occasions when he was present at trustees’ meetings (note of 22 October 2012 from Alan Crookham). In 1868 he failed in his ambition for the Gallery to acquire the so‐called Colonna Raphael (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 16.30ab). As well as speaking on behalf of the National Gallery in the House of Lords, he loaned paintings to the 1857 Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition , of whose General Council he was chairman. He became an art lover following his trip to Italy in 1821, in June of which year he also paid several visits to the Louvre. He paid brief visits to Paris in the summers of 1851 and 1852, during the first of which he wrote that he had formed a much higher opinion of the beauty of Paris than he had hitherto entertained. His own collection of paintings included Claude’s Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid (‘The Enchanted Castle’) (NG 6471), which he acquired in 1848. (Back to text.)

3 On Robert James Loyd‐Lindsay, Baron Wantage, see Roger T. Stearn, ‘Lindsay, Robert James Loyd‐, Baron Wantage (1832–1901)’, ODNB; on Lady Wantage, see T.A.B. Corley, ‘Lindsay, Harriet Sarah Loyd‐, Lady Wantage (1837–1920) , ODNB. On their marriage in 1858, Lord Overstone settled on the couple the Lockinge estate acquired in 1854 by his father, Lewis Loyd (died 1858). (Back to text.)

4 Lockinge House was demolished a few years after A.T. Loyd’s death in 1944: [Loyd] 1967, p. i. For the record of NG 6422 being in the drawing room, see the privately printed List of the Pictures at Lockinge House, Wantage – July 1936 (copy in the NG Library). (Back to text.)

5 In 1933 A.T. Loyd sent the Gallery an album of photographs of the paintings in his collection (original letter of 16 March 1933 written from 53 Mount Street, London, W1). The photograph of NG 6422 shows a sliver of the picture’s frame, which appears to be the same as the present one. The album is in the NG Library (A.VII. Lower Shelf 15). For A.T. Loyd’s inheritance of the paintings at Lockinge, see [Loyd] 1967, p. i. (Back to text.)

6 According to a telephone conversation between Gabriel Naughton of Agnew’s and Jacqui McComish of the Gallery on 5 February 1999. (Back to text.)

7 The present house at Knightshayes was designed by William Burges in 1869–75 for Sir John Heathcoat‐Amory, 1st Baronet and Liberal MP for Tiverton (1868–85), who bought the Knightshayes estate in 1860. The estate was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1972 on the death of the 3rd Baronet. For further information on Knightshayes and the Heathcoat‐Amory family, see Nick Kingsley’s landedfamilies.blogspot.co.uk. (Back to text.)

8 In the foreword to the July 1965 exhibition at King’s Lynn (see Exhibitions) Geoffrey Agnew wrote: [Sir John and Lady Heathcoat Amory] have allowed me to announce that, eventually, the Lancret will go to the National Gallery…’. (Back to text.)

9 She was an international golfer and later a horticulturalist who, with her husband, the 3rd Baronet, chairman and later president of the lace‐makers John Heathcoat & Co., transformed the gardens at Knightshayes, near Tiverton, Devon (National Trust since 1973). The planning of the gardens began in 1946 and their execution continued over the next 25 years: Peter N. Lewis, ‘Wethered, Joyce [married name Joyce Heathcoat‐Amory, Lady Heathcoat Amory] (1901–1997)’, ODNB. Conceivably certain of its details, the slightly curved stone seat and the circular ornamental pond, were loosely inspired by NG 6422, which the Heathcoat‐Amorys had bought the year before they began work on the gardens. (Back to text.)

10 No. 50 of the 1742 Salon was described in the livret as being about the same size as no. 49 (‘représentant le Sieur Grandval dans un Jardin orné de Fleurs, Vases & des Statuës de Melpomene & de Thalie’), itself described as measuring ‘4 pieds sur 3 & demi de large’ (48 × 42 pouces). These measurements correspond to 130 × 113.7 cm. Thus, as Albert Godycki has pointed out to me (verbal communication), both the format and the size of NG 6422, the Ancien Régime measurements of which would have been about 2 pieds 9 pouces × 3 pieds, differ significantly from the those of no. 50 of the Salon, making it possible that the National Gallery’s painting is a reduced‐size and differently formatted copy of a painting exhibited at the Salon. The only known Portrait of the Actor Grandval is that in Indianapolis, the size of which measures approximately 2 pieds × 3 pieds, suggesting that this too might be a reduced‐size version of the painting exhibited at the Salon. That would assume that there existed a reduced‐size version of two different Salon paintings, which may well have been hung as pendants, both of which have been lost. Another explanation suggested by Alastair Laing avoids the assumption that two pictures, which otherwise correspond to descriptions in the livret, have been lost: given that the picture in Indianapolis cannot be easily imagined in a vertical format, he proposes that the dimensions in the Salon livret may have been wrong in respect of both size and format; that the Indianapolis picture was indeed no. 49 of the 1742 Salon; and that NG 6422 can therefore reasonably have been described as around the same size, and is therefore no. 50 of the 1742 Salon. This explanation is reasonable, but it does rest on a selective reading of the descriptions in the livret; the matter is therefore unresolved. (Back to text.)

11 A privately printed edition of this catalogue was produced in 1914 ‘upon subscription by members of the Burlington Fine Arts Club and their friends’, wherein NG 6422 appears as no. 14 and is illustrated in pl. X. (Back to text.)

12 In the preface to the Commemorative Catalogue (1933) W.G. Constable wrote that it was based upon the exhibition catalogue, but rearranged, with all entries revised with the help of, among others, Charles Sterling. Sterling was credited by W.G. Constable, acting as general editor, with having written the majority of the entries for the pre‐1800 paintings and drawings. (Back to text.)

13 George Morrill was a picture liner working under his own name during the years 1857–65: Simon 2009 (online). This suggests that the painting was lined at about the time of its acquisition by Samuel Jones Loyd. (Back to text.)

14 Holmes and Focarino 1991, p. 96. NG 6422 seems first to have been called La Tasse de Chocolat in the catalogue of the 1913 London exhibition. In a review of the Guildhall exhibition of 1898 Lady Emilia Dilke identified the drink as tea and rejected its attribution to Lancret: Dilke 1898, p. 334 and ill. p. 331 as ‘Attribué à Lancret’. A year later Lady Dilke had accepted the attribution with enthusiasm (see text and reference in note 55). (Back to text.)

15 Encyclopédie , vol. 21, 8:3 (illustrating the article ‘Fayancerie’). (Back to text.)

16 De Blegny 1687, pp. 154–5 (figs 2, 4). (Back to text.)

17 Ibid. , p. 155. (Back to text.)

18 Bailey 2003, p. 154. De Blegny (1687, p. 156) recommended adding sugar to coffee and for medical reasons was critical of those who did not. It has been argued that it was not until milk was added to coffee that it was transformed into a popular beverage in France from the late seventeenth century: Landweber 2010. However, no milk jug is evident in NG 6422. (Back to text.)

19 Dufour 1685, pp. 326, 364–6. (Back to text.)

20 See note 10. (Back to text.)

22 See, for example two examples of coffee pots in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon, invs OAP949 and OAP939, and the silver pot by François‐Thomas Germain of 1756–7 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 33.165.1. (Back to text.)

23 De Blegny 1687, p. 167. Nicolas de Blegny made claims for coffee’s therapeutic effects against a wide variety of ailments ( ibid. , especially pp. 180–5), including insomnia (p. 181)! A broad range of therapeutic effects were also attributed to coffee in Chanson sur l’usage du caffé 1711, whose anonymous author recommended (among other things) coffee grounds for whitening teeth and freshening breath (stanza XXIV). In their article on coffee in the Encyclopédie , however, Diderot and Vandenesse recognised its stimulant and diuretic effects: Encyclopédie , vol. 2, pp. 528–9. (Back to text.)

24 The cups in NG 6422 have no handles. Such a cup is described in the Encyclopédie as ‘une tasse à caffé sans anse’ and is illustrated in vol. 21, pl. 21, fig. 26. The decoration of a round soft‐paste porcelain box painted in underglaze blue of about 1695–1710 in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. C.476&A‐1909) is quite like that of the cup in NG 6422, as is that on the wine coolers in Lancret’s Luncheon with Ham (1735; Chantilly, Musée Condé), which Holmes has identified as Saint‐Cloud porcelain (Holmes and Focarino 1991, p. 14). (Back to text.)

26 Bailey 2003, p. 154. Gage has since also noted that Lancret would have portrayed specific individuals full‐face rather than in three‐quarter view or profile: Conisbee 2009, p. 290 (catalogue entry by Frances Gage on Lancret’s Picnic after the Hunt, Washington, National Gallery of Art, inv. 1952.2.22). However, a painting by Lancret reasonably called Portrait d’une famille shows the three individuals thus; it was offered for sale at Rieunier & Associés, Paris, 7 December 2009, lot 107. (Back to text.)

27 See note 10. (Back to text.)

[page 308]

28 Both paintings belong to Tate Britain. (Back to text.)

29 Laing 1986, p. 181. (Back to text.)

31 Laing 1986, p. 181. (Back to text.)

32 For multi‐figured genre compositions by de Troy that became the subject of prints published during the 1730s, see Leribault 2002, nos P.124, P.135 and (probably) P.231. For an example of what is certainly a portrait, not a genre picture, of a richly dressed woman drinking a hot beverage, see François de Troy’s Portrait of Marie‐Catherine de Tubeuf (Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie, inv. GVL 100) of 1723 or 1728. It is said to show her drinking tea, but it may be coffee. Certainly the picture’s composition owes much to a genre engraving by Nicolas Bonnart of about 1695 showing a lady drinking coffee. For a survey of certain specific activities associated with Paris’s leisured class, see Bremer‐David 2011. This volume includes a useful bibliography, among which is Ebeling 2007, in which it is said that the lady in François de Troy’s portrait of Marie du Soul de Beaujour is drinking chocolate. (Back to text.)

34 For examples of decorative schemes in which Lancret was one of two or more participants, see Salmon 1995, pp. 19, 22 and passim. (Back to text.)

35 For example, in Dame qui prend du Café by Robert Bonnart and Cavalier and a Lady drinking Chocolate by Nicolas Bonnart. On the latter print and other images of the leisure pursuits of Parisian society, see Ebeling 2007. (Back to text.)

36 The fullest scholarly account of this painting is in Vogtherr 2011a, pp. 183–212. (Back to text.)

37 Gersaint’s Shop Sign was owned by Jean de Jullienne by 1732 and until 1746. Lancret’s paintings were among those collected by Jean de Jullienne, who also commissioned from Lancret copies of paintings by Watteau sent abroad (Holmes and Focarino 1991, pp. 38, 44; Tillerot 2007, pp. 93, 142, 177 and 370–1), from which circumstance it is reasonable to infer that Lancret would probably have had access to the paintings in the Jullienne collection. (Back to text.)

38 See Grasselli and Rosenberg 1984, p. 458, where it is said that the print was most likely made, not directly after Watteau’s painting, but after Pater’s copy. (Back to text.)

39 Mary Tavener Holmes is not convinced by these comparisons with Watteau’s work (email to the author, March 2013), although elsewhere she notes Lancret’s homage in others of his paintings to a figure in Gersaint’s Shop Sign (in her catalogue entry for Lancret’s Fête galante with the Horses of the Sun of about 1725, Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci, inv. GK I 5668, in Vogtherr 2011a, p. 541). (Back to text.)

40 For the Edinburgh painting, especially in relation to de Jullienne’s collection, see Vogtherr and Tonkovich 2011, no. 25 (entry by Christoph Vogtherr). (Back to text.)

41 Wildenstein 1924, no. 4; Madrid, Museo Thyssen‐Bornemisza, inv. 216. (Back to text.)

42 Ibid. , no. 226; Vogtherr 2011a, pp. 573–84 (entry by Mary Tavener Holmes); Potsdam, Sanssouci, inv. GK I 5608. (Back to text.)

43 Ibid. , no. 138; London, Wallace Collection inv. P478. (Back to text.)

44 For example Jacques de Lajoue in Le Rendez‐vous à la fontaine dated about 1735 by Marianne Roland Michel in Roland Michel 1984a, no. P.150, fig. 136; and Jean‐Baptiste Oudry in Italian Comedians in a Garden, dated about 1715 in Opperman 1977, no. P.105 and fig. 37. (Back to text.)

45 Eidelberg 1968. A vase like that in NG 6422, sharing the motifs of an overhanging rim, fluting and leaves at the base of a waisted bowl, was made by Philibert Vigier for Versailles: see Souchal 1977–87, vol. 1 (1977), p. 10 (no. 44, illustrated p. 11, as by Marc Arcis, corrected to Philibert Vigier in vol. 2 [1981], p. 422). The shell‐shaped fountain in NG 6422 may have been inspired by a design of Gilles‐Marie Oppenord, whose drawing (Paris, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux‐Arts, inv. O.760; wash, 22.3 × 32.2 cm) shows the basin of his fountain supported by three dolphins, whereas that painted by Lancret has no apparent support at all. (Back to text.)

46 See Holmes and Focarino 1991, no. 17, and note 10. (Back to text.)

47 Ibid. , pp. 45–6. On the stronger colours used by Lancret in his later work including NG 6422, see Vogtherr 2003, p. 20. (Back to text.)

48 Dacier and Vuaflart 1921–9, vol. 1, no. 37. The painting was no longer in the Jullienne collection in 1756, when a manuscript catalogue of the collection was prepared. (Back to text.)

49 I am grateful to our dachshund, Hamish, for drawing this to my attention. (Back to text.)

50 Jullienne also owned Jean‐François de Troy’s Woman drinking Coffee (and its pendant, Woman reading a Letter) (both Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie), so that the subject matter of NG 6422 may have appealed to him. For these paintings see Vogtherr, Tonkovich 2011, pp. 119–21 (entry by Christoph Vogtherr). Another link, albeit tenuous, between NG 6422 and Watteau lay in the fact that the father of Watteau’s friend Antoine de la Roque derived his fortune from importing coffee into France, and that he himself lived (and died) above the fashionable coffee house called the Café de Procope: François Moureau, ‘De Watteau à Chardin: Antoine de la Roque, journaliste et collectionneur’, in Mélanges en hommage à Pierre Rosenberg 2001, pp. 350, 352–3. De la Roque’s father was the first to import coffee into France; his older brother, Jean, wrote Voyage de l’Arabie heureuse, Paris 1716 part of which was devoted to ‘un Traité historique de l’origine & du progrès du Café, tant dans l’Asie que dans l’Europe; de son introduction en France, & de l’établissement de son usage à Paris’: Ukers 1922, passim. (Back to text.)

52 Citation from ibid. , no. 18 (entry by Mary Tavener Holmes). (Back to text.)

53 ‘Le rival de Vatteau, M. Lencré, nous a donné cette année d’excellents morceaux. Que d’agréments dans les personnages, quelle légèreté de pinceau, quelle variété de coloris! Que les desseins sont riants! Quels paysages! Partout il est aimable et brillant.’ Observations sur les Ecrits Modernes, letter CCCCXXXV, 29 August 1742, cited in Huot de Saint Albin 2003–4, vol. 1, p. 172. (Back to text.)

54 My thanks to Albert Godycki for pointing this out. (Back to text.)

55 Dilke 1899b, p. 102. (Back to text.)

56 Manners 1911, pp. 5–6, ill. p. 3. Her citation is from the poem A ve, Soror by Henry Newbolt published in his Songs of Memory and Hope, London 1909. (Back to text.)

57 The Times, 30 May 1913, p. 5. (Back to text.)

58 Baker 1925, p. 300. (Back to text.)

60 See note 10. (Back to text.)

61 On the characeristics of Lancret’s late years, see Mary Tavener Holmes in Vogtherr 2011a, pp. 609–10, and Vogtherr 2003, pp. 19–20. (Back to text.)

62 NG 6422 was here recorded as hanging in the dining room of Lockinge House. (Back to text.)

63 Recorded in the drawing room: see note 4. (Back to text.)

Abbreviations

Technical abbreviations
Macro‐XRF
Macro X‐ray fluorescence
XRD
X‐ray powder diffraction

List of archive references cited

List of references cited

Alfeld et al. 2013
AlfeldA.J.V. PedrosoM. van Eikema HommesG. Van der SnicktG. TauberJ. BlaasM. HaschkeK. ErlerJ. Dik and K. Janssens, ‘A mobile instrument for in situ scanning macro‐XRF investigation of historical paintings’, Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, 2013, 28760–7
Bailey 2003
BaileyColin B., ed., The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting (exh. cat. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), New Haven and London 2003
Baker 1925
BakerC.H. Collins, ‘Old Masters at Messrs Agnew’, Burlington Magazine, June 1925, 46267298–301 and 305
Baker and Henry 2001
BakerChristopher and Tom HenryThe National Gallery Complete Illustrated CatalogueLondon 2001
Blegny 1687
BlegnyNicolas deLe Bon Usage du Caffé et du Chocolat pour la preservation & pour la guerison des MaladiesLyons 1687
Bremer‐David 2011
Bremer‐DavidCharissa, ed., Paris: Life and Luxury in the Eighteenth CenturyLos Angeles 2011
Burlington Fine Arts Club 1913
Burlington Fine Arts ClubFrench Art of the Eighteenth Century (exh. cat. Burlington Fine Arts Club, London), London 1913
Chanson sur l’usage du caffé 1711
Chanson sur l’usage du caffé, sur ses proprietez, & sur la maniere de le bien préparerParis, Jacques Estienne, 1711
Conisbee 2009
ConisbeePhilipFrench Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth CenturyWashington DC 2009
Corley
CorleyT.A.B., ‘indsay, Harriet Sarah Loyd‐, Lady Wantage (1837–1920)’, in ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, 2004–
Cox 1932
CoxT.Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900 (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932), 1932
Dacier and Vuaflart 1921–9
DacierÉmileJ. Hérold and Albert VuaflartJean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au XVIIIe siècle (I, Notices et documents biographiques, 1929; II, Historique, 1922; III, Catalogue, 1922; IV, Planches, 1921), 4 volsParis 1921–9
Davies 1946
DaviesMartinNational Gallery Catalogues: The French SchoolLondon 1946 (revised 2nd edn, London 1957)
Davies 1957
DaviesMartinNational Gallery Catalogues: The French School, 2nd edn, revised, London 1957
Dilke 1898
DilkeEmilia F.S., ‘L’art français au Guildhall de Londres en 1898’, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1898, 20th year, 2nd period321–36
Dilke 1899b
DilkeEmiliaFrench Painters of the Eighteenth CenturyLondon 1899
Dufour 1685
DufourPhilippe SylvestreTraitez Nouveaux et curieux du Café, du Thé et du ChocolatLyons 1685
Ebeling 2007
EbelingJörg, ‘Upwardly mobile: genre painting and the conflict between landed and moneyed interests’, Studies in the History of Art. French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Philip ConisbeeWashington DC 2007, 7273–89
Eidelberg 1968
EidelbergMartin P., ‘Watteau, Lancret, and the Fountains of Oppenort’, Burlington Mazagine, August 1968, 110785445–6
Encyclopédie 1751–72
DiderotM. and M. d’ Alembert, eds, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers28 volsGeneva 1751–72
Foster 1905
FosterJoshua JamesFrench Art from Watteau to Prud’hon3 volsLondon 1905
Grasselli and Rosenberg 1984
GrasselliMargaret Morgan and Pierre RosenbergWatteau 1684–1721 (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin), Washington DC 1984
Guiffrey 1874
GuiffreyJulesÉloge de Lancret peintre du roi par Ballot de Sovot accompagné de diverses notes sur Lancret, de pièces inédites et du catalogue de ses tableaux et des ses estampes, réunis et publiés par J.J. GuiffreyParis 1874
Herda‐Mousseaux, Rambourg and Séret 2015
Herda‐MousseauxRose‐MariePatrick Rambourg and Guillaume SéretThé, Café ou Chocolat? Les boissons exotiques à Paris au XVIIIe siècle (exh. cat. Musée Cognacq‐Jay, Paris), Paris 2015
Holland 1963
HollandRalphNoble Patronage: An Exhibition Devoted to the Activity of the Percy Family, Earls and Dukes of Northumberland, as Collectors and Patrons of the Arts (exh. cat. Hatton Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne), Newcastle 1963
Holmes and Focarino 1991
HolmesMary Tavener and Joseph FocarinoNicolas Lancret, 1690–1743 (exh. cat. Frick Collection, New York; Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth), New York 1991
Huot de Saint Albin 2003–4
Huot de Saint AlbinBernard, ‘Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Le Salon de 1742’ (mémoire de maîtrise d’Histoire de l’Art, rédigé sous la direction de Monsieur le Professeur Alain Mérot), 3 vols, Université de Paris IV‐Sorbonne, Année 2003–4
La Roque 1716
La RoqueJean deVoyage de l’Arabie heureuseParis 1716
Laing 1986
LaingAlastairEdith StandenAnoinette Faÿ‐Hallé and J. Patrice MarandelFrançois Boucher 1703–1770 (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Grand Palais, Paris), New York 1986
Landweber 2010
LandweberJulia, ‘Domesticating the “Queen of Beans”: how Old Regime France learned to love coffee’, World History Bulletin, spring 2010, 10–12
L’art de vivre long‐temps 1751
L’art de vivre long‐temps en parfaite santé. Par le secours de la médicine catholique, & de l’hygienne Avec des observations générales & particulières sur le régime de vivre, & de la cure … ainsi que sur le bon ou mauvais usage du caffé, du thée…[Berlin?] 1751
Leribault 2002
LeribaultChristopheJean‐François de Troy (1679–1752)Paris 2002
Levey 1994
LeveyMichaelPainting and Sculpture in France 1700–1789New Haven and London 1993
Lewis
LewisPeter N., ‘Wethered, Joyce [married name Joyce Heathcoat‐Amory, Lady Heathcoat Amory] (1901–1997)’, in ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, 2004–
List of the Pictures 1936
List of the Pictures at Lockinge House, Wantagen.p. 1936
Loyd 1928
LoydA.T.Guide to the Pictures at Lockinge Housen.p. 1928
Loyd 1967
LoydC.L.The Loyd Collection of Paintings and Drawings at Betterton House, Lockinge near Wantage, BerkshireLondon 1967
Loyd 1971
LoydSamuel JonesBaron OverstoneThe correspondence of Lord Overstone, ed. D.P. O’BrienLondon 1971
Loyd‐Lindsay et al. 1902
Loyd‐LindsayRobert JamesBaron Wantageet al.Catalogue of Pictures forming the collection of Lord and Lady Wantage at 2 Carlton Gardens, London, Lockinge House, Berks, and Overstone Park and Arlington HouseLondon 1902
Manners 1911
MannersVictoriaLady, ‘Lady Wantage’s collection of pictures’, The Connoisseur, January 1911, 295–6
Mélanges en hommage à Pierre Rosenberg 2001
Mélanges en hommage à Pierre Rosenberg. Peintures et dessins en France et en Italie XVIIe–XVIII sièclesParis 2001
National GalleryThe National Gallery January 1973 – June 1975London 1975
National GalleryThe National Gallery Report: Trafalgar SquareLondon [various dates]
Newbolt 1909
NewboltHenrySongs of Memory and HopeLondon 1909
ODNB 2004
ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, Oxford 2004–
Opperman 1977
OppermanHal N.Jean‐Baptiste Oudry (PhD thesis, 1972), 2 volsNew York and London 1977
Reed
ReedMichael, ‘Loyd, Samuel Jones, Baron Overstone (1796–1883)’, in ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, 2004–
Roberts 1973
RobertsKeith, ‘Recent museum acquisitions’, Burlington Magazine, June 1973, 115843394
Roland Michel 1984a
Roland MichelMarianneLajoüe et l’art rocailleNeuilly‐sur‐Seine 1984
Royal Academy of Arts 1933
Royal Academy of ArtsCommemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of French Art, 1200–1900 (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London), Oxford and London 1933
Sahut, Martin and Sindaco‐Domas 2009–10
SahutMarie‐CatherineÉlisabeth Martin and Claudia Sindaco‐Domas, ‘Le Repas de chasse et Les Plaisirs du bain de Nicolas Lancret’, Techne, 2009–10, 30–1162–9
Salmon 1995
SalmonXavierVersailles: les chasses exotiques de Louis XV (exh. cat. Musée de Picardie, Amiens; Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles), Paris 1995
Sanchez 2004
SanchezPierreDictionnaire des Artistes exposant dans les Salons des XVII et XVIIIème Siècles à Paris et en Province3 volsDijon 2004
Simon 2009
[SimonJacob], British Picture Restorers 1600–1950 (National Portrait Gallery online dictionary), http://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/directory-of-british-picture-restorers, revised edn, March 2009
Souchal 1977–87
SouchalFrançoisFrench Sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries3 volsOxford 1977–87
Stearn
StearnRoger T., ‘Lindsay, Robert James Loyd‐, Baron Wantage (1832–1901)’, in ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, 2004–
Sutton 1968
SuttonDenys, ed., France in the Eighteenth Century (exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London), London 1968
Temple 1898
TempleA.G.Examples of French ArtLondon 1898
Temple 1905
TempleA.G.A Catalogue of Pictures forming the Collection of Lord and Lady Wantage at 2 Carlton Gardens, London, Lockinge House, Berks and Overstone House and Arlington HouseLondon 1905
Tillerot 2007
TillerotIsabelle deJean de Jullienne et les collectionneurs de son tempsParis 2007
Times 30 May 1913
The Times, 30 May 1913, 5
Ukers 1922
UkersWilliam H.All About CoffeeNew York 1922
Vogtherr 2003
VogtherrChristoph MartinNicolas Lancret. Der GuckkastenmannBerlin 2003
Vogtherr 2011
VogtherrChristoph MartinStiftung Preussiche Schlösser und Gärten Berlin‐Brandenburg. Bestandskataloge der Kunstsammlungen. Französische Gemälde I. Watteau, Pater, Lancret, LajoüeBerlin 2011
Vogtherr et al. 2011
VogtherrChristoph Martinet al.Jean de Jullienne: Collector and Connoisseur (exh. cat. Wallace Collection, London), London 2011
Who was Who
Who was Whohttp://www.ukwhoswho.comLondon 1920–2014 (online edn, 2014)
Wildenstein 1924
WildensteinGeorgesLancret: biographie et catalogue critiques, l’oeuvre de l’artiste reproduite en deux cent quatorze héliogravuresParis 1924
Wilson 1985
WilsonMichaelThe National Gallery Schools of Painting: French Paintings before 1800London 1985

List of exhibitions cited

Bristol and Bolton 2001
Bristol, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery; Bolton, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Family Fortunes, 2001
King’s Lynn 1965
King’s Lynn, Fermoy Art Gallery, The Heathcoat Amory Collection, 1965
London 1898
London, Guildhall, Corporation of London Art Gallery, Loan Collection of Pictures by Painters of the French School, 1898 (exh. cat.: Temple 1898)
London 1913
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, French Art of the Eighteenth Century, Summer Exhibition 1913
London 1925
London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Old Masters on behalf of The Royal Northern Hospital, Holloway, 1925
London 1932, Royal Academy
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900, 1932 (exh. cat.: Cox 1932)
London 1968
London, Royal Academy of Arts, France in the Eighteenth Century, 1968 (exh. cat.: Sutton 1968)
London, Norwich and Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne 1997
London, National Gallery; Norwich, Castle Museum; Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, Young Gainsborough, 1997
New York and Fort Worth 1991–2
New York, Frick Collection; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Nicolas Lancret 1690–1743, 1991–2
Ottawa, Washington DC and Berlin 2003–4
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada; Washington DC, National Gallery of Art; Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, 2003–4 (exh. cat.: Holland 1963)
Oxford 1934–5
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Pictures from Lockinge House, Wantage, 1934–5
Paris 1742
Paris, Paris Salon, 1742

The Organisation of the Catalogue

This is a catalogue of the eighteenth‐century French paintings in the National Gallery. Following the example of Martin Davies’s 1957 catalogue of the Gallery’s French paintings, the catalogue includes works by or after some artists who were not French: Jean‐Etienne Liotard, who was Swiss, Alexander Roslin, who was Swedish, and Philippe Mercier, born in Berlin of French extraction but working mainly in England.

Works are catalogued by alphabetical order of artist, and multiple works by an artist are arranged in order of date or suggested date. Works considered to be autograph come first, followed by works in which I believe the studio played a part, those which are studio productions, and later copies. Artists’ biographies are summary only.

The preliminary essay and all entries and artist biographies are by Humphrey Wine unless initialled by one of the authors listed on p. 4.

Each entry is arranged as follows:

Title: The traditional title of each painting has been adopted except where misleading to do so.

Date: The date, or the suggested date, is given immediately below the title. The reason for any suggested date is explained in the body of the catalogue entry.

Media and measurementS: Height precedes width, and measurements (in centimetres) are of the painted surface to the nearest millimetre ignoring insignificant variations. Additional information on media and measurements, where appropriate, is provided in the Technical Notes.

Inscriptions: Where the work is inscribed, the inscription is given immediately after the note of media and measurements. Information is derived from observation, whether by the naked eye or with the help of a microscope, by the cataloguer and a member of the Conservation Department. The use of square brackets indicates letters or numerals that are not visible, but reasonably presumed once to have been so.

Provenance: Information on former owners is provided under Provenance and the related endnotes. A number of significant owners, including Sir Bernard Eckstein; Ernest William Beckett, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe; John Arthur and Mary Venetia James; Yolande Lyne Stephens; Sir John Pringle; Mrs Mozelle Sassoon; James Stuart of Dunearn; John Webb; and Consuelo and Emilie Yznaga, are discussed further in an appendix to this volume on the National Gallery website, ‘Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (see https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/national‐gallery‐catalogues/former‐owners‐of‐the‐eighteenth‐century‐french‐paintings https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-resources/national-gallery-catalogues/former-owners-of-the-eighteenth-century-french-paintings-in-the-national-gallery-1 ).

Exhibitions: Long‐term loans to other collections have been included under this heading, but they do not appear in the List of Exhibitions at the end of the catalogue. Exhibitions in that list appear in date order.

Related Works: Dimensions are given where known, and works are in oil on canvas unless otherwise indicated. They have not been verified by first hand first‐hand inspection. Dimensions of drawings or prints, other than in captions to illustrations, are not given unless they are exceptional. Dimensions are given in centimetres, but other units of measurement used in, say, an auction catalogue have been retained. The metric equivalent of an Ancien Régime pouce is 2.7 cm and (after 1825) that of an inch is 2.54 cm. In the case of prints, where measurements are given, it has not always been possible to determine whether they are of the plate or the image.

Technical Notes: All works in the catalogue were examined in the Conservation Studio by Paul Ackroyd and Ashok Roy of the Conservation and Scientific Departments respectively, generally together with the author of the catalogue entry. The records of these observations were used to compile the catalogue’s Technical Notes. In support of these studies, paint samples for examination and analysis were taken by Ashok Roy from approximately 60 per cent of the paintings in order to establish the nature and constitution of ground layers, the identity of certain pigments, to investigate possible colour changes in paint layers and to answer curatorial enquiries relating to layer structure (as determined by paint cross‐sections). A few more works had already been sampled, mainly in conjunction with past conservation treatments, and the observations from these past studies were reviewed and incorporated. These studies were carried out by Ashok Roy, Marika Spring, Joyce Plesters and Aviva Burnstock. Paint samples and cross‐sections were examined by optical microscopy, and instrumental analysis of pigments was based largely on scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X‐ray analysis. Early in the cataloguing programme, some work with X‐ray diffraction analysis ( XRD ) was carried out for further characterisation of certain pigments. Some of these results had already been published separately; these papers are cited in the catalogue text. Similarly, any published analyses of the paint binder are cited, or if not published then reference is made to the reports in the Scientific Department files. The majority of the [page 36]analyses of the organic component of paint samples from works in this catalogue were carried out by Raymond White.

At a later stage in the cataloguing programme Rachel Billinge carried out infrared reflectography on 30 of the 72 works using an OSIRIS digital infrared scanning camera with an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) array sensor (8 had already been examined by infrared imaging, usually in connection with a conservation treatment). At the same time she reviewed the entries, adding observations from technical imaging (both X‐radiography and infrared reflectography) and incorporating some additional details about materials and techniques from stereomicroscopy (photomicrographs were made of 12 works). Where X‐radiographs have been made, the individual plates were scanned and composite X‐ray images assembled. Some, but not all, were further processed to remove the stretcher bars from the digital image. Some further paint samples from a few works for which there were still outstanding questions at this stage in the cataloguing programme were examined and analysed. These analyses were carried out by Marika Spring, with contributions on individual paintings from Joanna Russell, Gabriella Macaro, Marta Melchiorre di Crescenzo, Helen Howard and David Peggie.

Macro‐X‐ray fluorescence scanning was carried out by Marika Spring and Rachel Billinge on one work, Perronneau’s pastel, A Girl with a Kitten (NG 3588), to provide fuller understanding of its means of creation than had been available from earlier analyses of the materials. The pastel was scanned during the summer of 2015 thanks to the loan of a Bruker M6 Jetstream macro‐X‐ray fluorescence scanner by Delft University of Technology through collaboration with Dr Joris Dik, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Chair, Materials in Art and Archeology, Department of Materials Science and Dr Annelies van Loon, now Paintings Research Scientist at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. This mobile system, the first commercially available macro‐XRF scanner, was developed by Bruker Nano GmbH in close collaboration with Antwerp University and Delft University of Technology (see Alfeld 2013, pp. 760–7). This examination included transmitted infrared reflectography and some further directed sampling to aid interpretation of the new results.

Frames: Information is given only in the case of a frame which is, or which is likely to be, original to the painting.

Text: With the exception of the Lagrenée, which was not formally acquired until July 2016, the entries take account of information and opinions of which the cataloguers were aware as at 30 June 2016.

Lifespan dates, where known, are given in the Provenance section and in the Index.

General References: These do not provide a list of every published reference. The annual catalogues published by the Gallery before the First World War mainly repeat the information in the first Gallery catalogue in which the painting in question was published. Consequently, only the first catalogue and later catalogues containing additional or revised information have been referenced. In all relevant cases references have been given to Martin Davies’s 1946 and 1957 catalogues. In the case of works acquired after 1957, reference is made to the interim catalogue entry published in the relevant National Gallery Report. No reference to entries in the Gallery’s Complete Illustrated Catalogue (London 2001) has been given since they contained no previously unpublished information. Other references are to catalogues raisonnés and other significant publications concerning the painting in question.

Bibliography: This includes all references cited in the endnotes to catalogue entries other than references to archival sources, which are given in full in the endnotes. Cited articles from newspapers, magazines, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Who Was Who have usually been accessed via their respective online portals.

List of Exhibitions: This is a list of exhibitions in which the paintings have appeared. The list is in date order. The author of the accompanying exhibition catalogue or catalogue entry is given where known. Exhibition catalogues are included in the Bibliography, by author.

About this version

Version 3, generated from files HW_2018__16.xml dated 06/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Entries for NG1090, NG2897, NG4078, NG5583, NG6422, NG6435, NG6445, NG6495, NG6592, NG6598 and NG6600-NG6601 marked for publication.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9W-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version)
https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E7F-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style
Wine, Humphrey. “NG 6422, A Lady in a Garden having Coffee with Children”. 2018, online version 3, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9W-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Wine, Humphrey (2018) NG 6422, A Lady in a Garden having Coffee with Children. Online version 3, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9W-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 17 March 2025).
MHRA style
Wine, Humphrey, NG 6422, A Lady in a Garden having Coffee with Children (National Gallery, 2018; online version 3, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9W-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 17 March 2025]