Half-length, seated, turned to the left. She wears a dress of
figured brocade, worked with coloured flowers and foliage on a
white ground, and trimmed with white ribbons; her sleeves are short
and edged with lace. On her head is a sort of mob cap, or headdress
of lace, tied under the chin with a striped ribbon; her hair is
short and powdered. In front of her is a frame of embroidery called
tambour-work, which she is working, her right hand being above, and
her left under the canvas. The background is grey, with a red
curtain to the right. Painted in an oval. On canvas, 2 ft. 7-1/2
in. high, by 2 ft. wide.
This picture has been attributed, but quite unwarrantably, to
Greuze, who does not appear to have painted Louis XV.'s mistress at
all, and certainly could not have done so when she was as young as
she is here represented. It is in fact a replica (and by no means a
bad one) of a portrait by Drouais, of which a great many
repetitions are extant, and of which the original--a
full-length--is now at Mentmore, Lord Rosebery's. The Mentmore
picture was purchased for £1,000.
Drouais was an indifferent artist whose name would long have passed
into oblivion, had he not painted princes and princesses. Diderot
drew this just estimate of his works:--"Tous les visages de cet
homme-là ne sont que le rouge vermillon le plus précieux,
artistement couché sur la craie la plus fine et la plus blanche....
Il n'y en a pas une de laide, et pas une qui ne déplût sur la
toile. Ce n'est pas de la chair; car, où est la vie, l'onctueux, le
transparent, les tons, les dégradations, les nuances?" And Larousse
endorses this view with the following remarks:--"Toutes ces
peintures, habilement traitées d'ailleurs comme métier, n'ont rien
de saillant, aucune puissance, aucune originalité. Les têtes sont
banales, ternes, sans physionomie. L'allure est gauche et pénible.
Les personnages sont fort mal habillés, bien que les draperies
soient exécutées en trompe-l'oeil et avec magnificence."
Madame de Pompadour is here represented at about the age of
thirty-five, a period when, having lost the influence of a lover
over the debauched and fickle Louis XV., she endeavoured to retain
her power by ministering to his pleasures and vices. Her appearance
completely tallies with the account given of her:--"Elle était
assez grande, bien faite, les cheveux, châtain clair, tres-beaux,
avec une peau d'une grande finesse et d'une blancheur éclatante.
Mais elle avait un genre de beauté qui se fane vite: ses chairs
molles s'infiltraient, s'enflammaient aisément; elle avait des
langueurs et des pâleurs maladives."
The tambour-work at which she is engaged was one of her favourite
occupations; and it is pleasant to remember, with the shocking
record of her extraordinary career, that she created that style in
decoration, furniture, dress, literature, and even art, which is
known by the name of Louis XV., a style which, wanting as it is in
the simplicity of mediævalism, and stamped though it be with the
character of its meretricious inventor, is yet always pleasing from
a certain refinement and artificial beauty.