WORKSHOP OF FRANÇOIS DE TROY (1645 -1730) La lecture dans un salon mondain

WORKSHOP OF FRANÇOIS DE TROY (1645 -1730) La lecture dans un salon mondain
Oil on canvas
45 x 65 cm

Provenance: Private collection, France

François de Troy, French painter and father of the painter Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752), executed numerous portraits of the court nobility. He was admired for his ability to portray the good manners and the fashion of the nobility and for his capacity to make any woman beautiful. In the 1690s, François de Troy became the main painter at the court of King Jacques II in exile in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

The present painting is probably a workshop version of the original painting by François de Troy « La Collation » [A light meal] 54.5 x 65.5 cm (signed, located and dated: peint à Paris par François / De Troy agé de 82 ans / En 1727) published in D. Brême, François de Troy, Paris, 1997, n° 60, and currently in a private collection. Ladies are portrayed in dresses fashionable in the 1730-s, wearing V-shaped neckline, long robes with edges with a lace-like braids and large cuffs and lace veils at their heads.