Marie Antoinette's

I am so excited to tell you about this exhibition catalog, because the minute I opened it I saw a painting by Nicolas Lancret I had never seen before! It did not take long before I found several unknown treasures; the beautifully illustrated catalog was put together to accompany the exhibition Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in 18th Century France.

Although the show is over, you can visit it through more than 75 works of art by 39 artists.  The book contains five short essays that walk you through the history of genre painting, the artists, women of fashion and scholars that influenced it and opposed it, while making connections between various forms of art.

Intimate Encounters encourages us to consider the role of genre painting in France. In the 18th century it existed in stark contrast to the more traditional historical style that dominated the Royal Academy.  The soft colors and intimate subjects of genre paintings challenged the tastes of the period and they challenged the artists that tried to present them.

They remain popular even today. This genre reflects the world of various classes, particularly the bourgeois. They even made witty remarks on society during a time when privacy became increasingly more important to many classes.

The genre painting existed as a window to a private setting, where a viewer probably should not be.  Even in scenes of public frivolity the viewer may gaze unseen, spying all the details and scandalous ones at that which occur before them.  Intimate Encounters is wonderfully presented and offers many fascinating approaches to understanding the demand for, popularity and beauty of intimate encounters in art.

The five sections include:
"Love, Domesticity, and the Evolution of Genre Painting In Eighteenth-Century France" by Richard Rand discusses the style and subject of genre painting as a comparable and even challenging style in a society when the highest valued art was traditional and historic painting.


"Hidden from View: French Women Authors and the Language of Rights, 1727-1792" by Virginia E. Swain is a wonderful piece on French women of letters and novelists, including Madame Riccoboni, Madame de Tencin and Madame de Lambert.


"The "Bourgeois" Family Revisited: Sentimentalism and Social Class in Prerevolutionary French Culture" by Sarah Maza discusses the changes in society at various levels; a new desire for privacy in the home is demonstrated in many genre paintings of the 18th century.


"Intimate Dramas: Genre Painting and New Theater in Eighteenth-Century France""Genre Prints in Eighteenth-Century France: Production, Market, and Audience" by Mark Ledbury introduces some of the connections between 18th century genre painting and the 18th century stage; not always obvious, the two art forms share more than you might expect!


"Genre Prints in Eighteenth-Century France: Production, Market, and Audience," by Anne L. Schroder is the last essay in the book.  It focuses on the genre prints of the 18th century, which were more easy to afford as well as create than paintings, yet appealed to members from all ranks of society.

The second half of the book contains the catalog of works from the exhibition.  Several prints accompany the many full color images of works by artists such as Boucher, Chardin, Watteau, Lancret, Greuze and Fragonard.  The works are accompanied with a description and discussion of the work in context.

Rand, Richard, and Juliette M. Bianco. 1997. Intimate encounters: love and domesticity in eighteenth-century France. [Hanover, N.H.]: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College. ISBN 9780691016634

Intimate encounters is available from:
amazon.com

"It is not always the lover a woman regrets when compelled to cease to love, it is the feeling, the charm, the joy of loving, joy so great that nothing can replace it."

Marie-Jeanne Laboras de Mézières (b. 1714, Paris) was not a lady of the court, yet had been born into a family once wealthy and noble, the Béarn. The family had been stripped of their wealth, and when she was a young girl she lost both her parents and had to live with an aunt. Marie-Jeanne was well educated, and grew up with fortunate looks, dark eyes, fair skin and an even figure. Where she lacked rank and wealth she made up for with wit and charisma.

At 18 she caught the eye of a well off Englishman. She was 18 and in love, and he was older and surely saw her as a mere distraction, as she was not of rank or wealth to consider for marriage! A fact of life she would learn from experience.

Marie-Jeanne would later publish her letters to her English man under the title "Letters of Mistress Fanni Buttlerd to Milord Charles Alfred de Caitombridge Earl of Plisinte Duke of Raflingth." The story tells of Fanni who is a young girl who makes mistakes and falls in love all the while putting full trust into her man. From this first edition with origninal letters (so they seem) we can tell that this 'first love' really affected Marie-Jeanne later in life, at least as a growing and learning experience.

She (Fanni or literally Marie-Jeanne) sacrifices everything for him, but he, nothing. She loses virtue and modesty, but who could be blamed but herself? Through the collection of letters you pity her, but she has learned what it means to be young, ignorant and too trusting. Whether the experience left her bitter or just damaged, it did her well. Think, Alanis Morissette... her realization of the lesson learned turned to creative energy and by 1734 she had received a role as an actress in the French play "The Surprise of Love."

She married François Riccoboni, also an actor who had written many popular plays. His parents were very successful, both actors and authors. Marie-Jeanne discovered a taste for literature and writing after meeting her husbands family. Her marriage had cooled after a few years, however she remained devoted to her absent husband. A loss of love left her miserable, but tough and she knew she needed to convince herself to deal with it. She really focused on writing as an escape, something to look forward to.

So she wrote, and she was good. So good, in fact, François began to consult her for writing advice! He went as far as publishing under her name! Now, by 1757 she decided to publish her work, and that is when she pulled out those letters between her and that Englishman that scared her heart. The style of telling a story through letters was a bit popular, yet she published anonymously. Eventually her identity was revealed, even though she did not want it to be. (friends with big mouths!)

Her later works such as The History of the Marquis of Cressy and Juliette Catesby. By 1761 she received a pension from the court, but continued to write, because it was really her passion! Eventually she was accused of not being the true author of someworks, but the claims were later dismissed. With the revolution she lost her pension, and became incredibly poor. Madame Ricconboni died on December 6, or 7th, 1792.

Image credits: Demarteau, Gilles-Antoine, 1750-1802., Flemish, active in France, French. After Vincent, François-André, 1746-1816. Head of a Woman, 1788. Color crayon manner engraving on laid paper. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.