Jean-Baptiste Charpentier

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's 25 July 1969, lot 335;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 July 2005, lot 107;
With Bernheimer Fine Old Masters, 2011;
From whom acquired by the present owner.

A contemporary and close associate of Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Jean-Baptiste Charpentier is best known for his charming genre scenes. Though stylistically rooted in eighteenth-century France, thematically this work reveals contemporary taste for seventeenth-century Dutch genre scenes. In this delightful scène galante, an amorous couple converses in the foreground. Nestled in the alcove of a humble village structure, the lovers seem to have caught the eye of a passerby who leads a donkey in the near distance. The young man, his gaze fixed on the object of his affection, extends his arm across the young lady’s lap to offer her a dove.  Perched on his left knee, an empty birdcage possesses both moralizing and erotic associations. The panting lap dog at the hem of the woman’s skirt, a charming detail, contributes to the amorous connotations.