Madame de Pompadour

Rococo

François Boucher

Madame de Pompadour

1756

Oil on canvas, 80 3/4 × 63 1/2 in. Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Louis XV's official mistress ordered her own portrait, set among books, letters, music and drawings: a sitter deciding the terms on which she would be looked at.

Look at

  • The sea-green dress with its pink roses fills the lower half as one spreading shape, and the whole room is arranged around it.
  • Gold and green answer each other through the picture — curtain and mirror frame, dress and clock — all of it in curves.
  • The silk is painted in long smooth strokes, the roses and lace in small raised touches, so the handling changes with each material.
  • Early in 1756 she had been appointed lady-in-waiting to the queen.
  • Bought in 1971 by a Bavarian bank; now on permanent loan to the Alte Pinakothek from HypoVereinsbank.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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