Allegorical Figure of a Woman Representing "Painting"

Description This tapestry, which depicts a woman at an easel personifying Painting, belonged to Madame de Pompadour. A subtle comment on exchange between media, the work represents one medium (painting) in a different medium (tapestry). When the tapestry was exhibited in 1765, critics marveled at how closely it imitated the painting it reproduced. The philosopher Denis Diderot wrote: “My word, if anyone standing four feet away is able to distinguish between the painting and the tapestry, I would give him both of them.”

Conservation

Tapestry cleaned in preparation for exhibition; frame repaired.

Examined in preparation for exhibition.

Date	Description	Narrative
4/15/2015	Treatment	Cleaned, repaired
6/30/2015	Examination	Examined

Exhibitions

• Madame de Pompadour, Patron and Printmaker. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2016.

Provenance Commissioned (?) by Madame de Pompadour; inherited by the Marquis de Marigny, 1764; sale of the Marquis de Marigny, Paris, March 18-April 6 1782, no. 126; purchased by Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun, 1782; exhibited at the Exposition d'art français du XVIII siecle, 1910, no. 60; sale of Joseph Bardac, Paris, December 9 1927, no. 135; Guerault, Paris [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; purchased by Henry Walters, Paris, 1928; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.

Inscriptions [Inscription] Carle Van Loo / Cozette exc. 1763

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1928