BOUCHER AND CHARDIN: Masters of Modern Manners

Almost exact contemporaries, the French painters Boucher and Chardin represent contrasting trends in the way women are depicted. This discerning book takes as its starting point two paintings of the mid-18th century, Chardin's "Lady Taking Tea" and Boucher's "Woman on a Daybed". It has been suggested that both painters used their wives as models, and both provide an intimate portrait of a woman's personal domestic life. Chardin was devoted to his first wife Marguerite, a young woman in poor health who died young. Boucher married the lively 17-year-old Marie-Jeanne for her looks, and neither of them was faithful. In "Lady Taking Tea", Chardin captures a quiet, contemplative moment. The woman seen in profile has downcast eyes as she stirs the tea in a blue and white cup, lost in her own thoughts. Boucher's "Woman on a Daybed", by contrast, is looking out of the picture slightly to the viewer's left, her lips pursed in the mischievous smile for which Marie-Jeanne was celebrated. Her elaborate dress is frilled down the front, and she extends her pointed foot in a high-heeled slipper to the end of the bed. Whereas Marguerite is retiring, Marie-Jeanne is provocative, and her surroundings emphasize this, with a curtain half open and crumpled clothes on the footstool. Both paintings feature a teapot, Chardin's in brown earthenware and Boucher's in blue and white china. The author goes on to investigate tea-drinking in other paintings, including Nicolas Lancret's erotic "Morning", in which the woman's breast is exposed as she pours tea for a male visitor. Scenes of women's lives from this period often have erotic content, but there is also a tradition of formal tea parties emphasizing the respectability of the sitters, for instance Hogarth's "An Assembly at Wanstead House", Richard Collins's "Tea Party" of 1725 with a family gathered reverentially round an expensive pewter tea service, or Francis Hayman's "Jonathan Tyres and his Family", an elaborately posed ensemble that can be seen in London's National Portrait Gallery. 144pp, large softback, chronology, numerous colour reproductions.