Just as Subleyras should be judged by his genre scenes rather than by
his scriptural subjects, so Jean Raoux’s (1677-1734) real significance
lies in the intimate note he introduced into his fancy portraits, and
not in his moderately successful excursions into mythology, like the
_Telemachus relating his Adventures to Calypso_, at the Louvre (No.
764). The _Young Woman reading a Letter_ (No. 765), in the La Caze
Room, is perhaps the most charming of many similar pictures from his
brush. In sentiment it belongs entirely to the amorous century of Louis
XV., which was to produce a Fragonard and a Greuze. Raoux was one of
the first French painters of contemporary life. Brought up in the old
tradition, he was in his last years influenced by the personality of
the great Watteau.
If Raoux was the somewhat sentimental painter of bourgeois life, Jean
François de Troy (1679-1752) played not infrequently the chronicler
of the elegant life of the leisured classes. Unfortunately this
interesting phase of his art is not represented at the Louvre, which,
besides the three _Portraits_ (Nos. 886-888) in the La Caze collection,
contains two of his famous designs for tapestry, representing scenes
from the _History of Esther_ (Nos. 884-885); and his large historical
painting, _The First Chapter of the Order of the Holy Ghost, held by
Henri IV. in 1595_ (No. 883).