Washerwoman follows the type of pastoral cabinet pictures that were quite popular during the Rococo period. They allowed for the playful combination of rural views, ruins and imaginative or exotic clothing worn by the participants. Thematic interest took second place to the aesthetic concerns for a painterly, colorful surface and the mood or sensibility of the subject.
Deshays, a native of Rouen, was the first prize winner of the Prix de Rome in 1751. During his four years in Rome he absorbed the lessons of the Bolognese masters Domenichino and Guercino. Later he was deeply influenced by Francois Boucher whose daughter Jean-Elisabeth he married in 1758. He enjoyed a growing reputation as a painter of religious subjects so much so that, following the Salon of 1761, in which his Scourging of St. Andrew was exhibited, he was hailed by Diderot as the most important painter in France.
Details
- Artist Name: Jean-Baptiste Deshays de Colleville (French, 1729-1765)
- Title: Washerwoman
- Date: 18th century
- Medium: Oil on canvas, oval (one of a pair)
- Dimensions: 19 1/2 x 16 3/8 in. (49.5 x 41.6 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon
- Accession Number: F.1983.07.2.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Stettiner.
(sale, Paris, Pavillon Gabriel, 17 June 1977, lot 15, ill., as Le repos des bergers, to);
[Jean Cailleux, Paris, buying for];
Norton Simon, Los Angeles, gift 1983 to;
The Norton Simon Foundation.
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- Norton Simon Museum, 2015-07-17 to 2016-01-04
Reinstallation of Galleries: Art History of the 17th and 18th Century Gains Fresh Dimension
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- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 90
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1448b p. 408
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