French School, circa 1750

Painting appears to be relined. Painting is dirty and under what appears to be an older yellow varnish. The varnish is visible around the periphery of the painted window, in faintly visible strokes. Painting could benefit from a light cleaning. Slight rubbing around edges, underneath frame, visible in catalogue. Couple retouches which fluoresce but varnish makes any accurate reading of retouches underneath quite difficult to see. Otherwise, paint retention and impasto seem to be good, especially in hair of putti and wooden legs which they carry. In a carved and giltwood frame.
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This playful and charming trompe l'oeil most likely originally functioned as a dessus de porte, or "overdoor," and may have once formed part of a room's larger decorative cycle depicting other flying and playing putti.  Whimsical paintings such as this were made popular by artists like François Boucher and François Le Moyne, for example, in the latter's series of eighteen paintings executed in 1729-30 for the Hôtel Peyrenc de Moras (now the Musée Rodin), Paris, which included eight oval works painted en camaieu featuring playing children and putti (now lost).  This genre continued well into the 1750s with paintings by artists like Bernard Lépicié and Hughes Taraval, with whose style the present picture shares many affinities. 

The prevalence of this genre throughout the 18th century exemplifies the shift away from the grand and imposing canvasses that filled the Versailles of Louis XIV towards an art better suited to the more intimate settings of the private Parisian hôtels built during the return of the aristocracy to the city in the 18th century.