Jacques de Lajoüe

François-Joachim Bernard Potier, 2nd Duc de Gesvres (1692-1757), Château de Mareil-en-France, Seine-et-Oise (according to Girodie 1928);

Gaston Brière (1871-1962), Paris;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Ader Picard Tajan, 28 November 1978, lot 32;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Ader Picard Tajan, 18 March 1980, lot 31;

With Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1988;

Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019), Paris;

His sale ("Old Master Paintings from the Lagerfeld Collection"), New York, Christie's, 23 May 2000, lot 44;

Where acquired by Johnny van Haeften on behalf of Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III.

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Elegance and Wonder: Masterpieces of European Art from the Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Collection, 20 March 2023 - 30 January 2025.

A. Girodie, “Les Titon, amateurs d'art et le Parnasse Français,” in Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, Paris 1928, p. 74;

M.L. Bataille, “Catalogue de l'oeuvre de Lajoue,” in Les Peintres français du XVIIIe siècle, histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres, L. Dimier (ed.), vol. II, Paris and Brussels 1930, p. 355, cat. no. 37;

J. Cailleux, “Personnages de Watteau dans l'oeuvre de Lajoüe,” in Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, Paris 1957, p. 108, reproduced;

M. Roland Michel, Lajoüe et l'art rocaille, Paris 1984, p. 194, cat. no. P.45, reproduced fig. 78.

Colorful, lush, and bursting with fantasy and wit, the art of Jacques de Lajoüe perfectly embodies what came to be known as the Rococo picturesque genre in early 18th-century France. The artist was a decorator as well as a painter, and inventive depictions of dreamlike park and garden scenes like this one were immensely fashionable as decorative panels. Lajoüe’s paintings and decors were intended to surround his aristocratic patrons with the creations of his fantastic imagination. He often incorporated surprising interactions between the painting’s human characters and the inanimate figures that decorated sculpture or architecture in the composition.

This work features two actors of the commedia dell’arte (a popular form of improvised theater using stock characters and situations) serenading a lone woman, each man apparently hoping to seduce her with his talent. This trivial scene of everyday desires occupies only a small portion of the canvas. Clearly, Lajoüe preferred to devote considerable space to the lavishly ornate and monumentally sized fountain. Although the woman’s reaction is not visible to the viewer, the sculpted nymphs that laze upon the fountain appear completely enamored with the performance.