Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour

Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour: Francois Boucher

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Francois Boucher Oil Painting - Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour

Work Overview: Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour
Bildnis der Madame de Pompadour
Francois Boucher
Date: 1756
Style: Rococo
Genre: portrait
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 201 x 157 cm
Location: Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

Four years after her marriage to Charles-Guillaume Le Normant d'Etioles in 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson became the mistress of Louis XV. Owing to her intellectual propensity, which impressed the king, she soon attained an elevated position at court: the climax of which was her being named on February 7, 1756 as the queen's lady-in-waiting (dame du palais). To commemorate the occasion a combination private and official portrait was painted by Boucher.

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, the Marquise de Pompadour, was Boucher's patron, and as numerous paintings show, one of his favorite subjects. He painted nearly a dozen pictures of Madam de Pompadour, not counting the numerous Diana's and Venus's which reflect her facial features.

This picture, from 1756, shows Madam de Pompadour not in her role as mistress to Louis XV, but as an intellectual and supporter of the Enlightenment. She is posed as if interrupted in reading a book, and her writing table nearby is fully supplied, with a quill inserted in the ink well. The room is scrumptiously decorated, with heavy damask curtains. In the rear is a handsomely carved bookcase, further evidence of the lady's intellectual abilities.

Boucher is most famous for his nudes, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise to find Madam de Pompadour in this portrait so fully clothed. Obviously one reason for that is to give the artist full range to paint thia beautiful dress, with its rose-frills and pleats. Boucher clearly idealized Pompadour almost like a porcelain doll and pays conspicuous attention to the ample silken costume, reflections of an opulence, somewhat contradictory to the "age of reason" which is the overt message of this gorgeous picture.

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Francois Boucher

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