Le Déjeuner

1739

Oil on canvas, 32 × 25 3/4 in. Musée du Louvre, Paris

A family at a small table is the occasion, but the room is the subject: mirror, gilt clock, lacquer and a Chinese figure on the shelf, the Rococo as a way of living.

Look at

Clock case, candle brackets, mirror crest and the gilt console at far left are all C- and S-curves; straight lines come mainly from window bars, mirror rails and floorboards.
A tall window at left lights the group. The mirror shows a doorway beyond, so the room reads as deep.
Colour comes in small saturated notes — the red lacquer table, a red cape, a blue dress — against gold and brown.

Bequeathed to the Louvre by Dr Achille Malécot in 1895.
Lent to Besançon in 2019–20 for an exhibition on Boucher's imagined China.

Image: Musée du Louvre · Public domain (faithful reproduction of a public-domain 2D work)