By Rigaud, who was regarded as the first painter of Europe for truth of resemblance united with magnificence of presentment, are: a masterly portrait of Bossuet, 783; and a superb rendering of the roi-soleil, 781, both on the L. wall. Further along, on the same wall, are 784, portrait of his mother in two aspects painted for the sculptor Coysevox; and his last work, 780, Presentation at the Temple. Rigaud was especially successful with the rich bourgeoisie of Paris, and later became court painter, supreme in expressing the grandiose and inflated pomposities of the age. He, says Reynolds, in the tumour of his presumptuous loftiness, was the perfect example of Du Pile's rules, that bid painters so to draw their portraits that they seem to speak and say to us: "Stop, look at me! I am that invincible king: majesty surrounds me. Look! I am that valiant soldier: I struck terror everywhere. I am that great minister, etc." By Largillière, who lacks the psychological insight of his contemporary, is, L. wall, 483, Portrait of the Comte de la Chartre. He was a master of the accessories and upholstery of portraiture and painted some 1500 sitters during his long career, part of which was passed in England as court painter to Charles II. and James II. A third successful portraitist was Jean Marc Nattier (1685-1766), whose ingenious and compliant art aimed at endowing a commonplace sitter with distinction and grace, and who generally was able to strike a happy medium between flattery and truth. Better represented at Versailles, he is but poorly seen here in 657, R. wall, A Magdalen, and 661A, L. wall, Unknown Portrait. 441 is an interesting portrait of Fagon, Louis XIV.'s favourite physician, by Jean Jouvenet (1644-1717), known as Le Grand, a talented and docile pupil of Lebrun, whose four large compositions executed for the church of St. Martin des Champs, 432-435, are hung in this room. 434, R. wall, Resurrection of Lazarus, is perhaps the best. His works are a connecting link between the pompous spread-eagle manner of the Siècle de Louis XIV. and the gay abandonment and heartless frivolity of the reign of Louis XV. We pass from this room to the Collection of Portraits in

Room XV.

of which some few possess artistic importance and many historical interest. We bestow what attention we may desire and pass direct to

Room XVI.

Embarkation for the Island of Cythera.
Watteau.
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devoted to seventeenth-century art. Chief among the painters who interpreted the refined sensuality and more pleasant vices of the age, yet not of them, was Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the melancholy youth from French Flanders, who began by painting St. Nicholases at three francs a week and his board, but who soon invented a new manner and became famous as the Peintre des Scènes Galantes. These scenes of coquetry, frivolity and amorous dalliance, with their patched, powdered and scented ladies and gallants, toying with life in a land where, like that of the Lotus Eaters, it seems always afternoon, he clothes with a refined and delicate vesture of grace and fascination. He has a poetic touch for landscape and a tender, pathetic sense of the tears in mortal things which make him akin to Virgil in literature, for over the languorous and swooning air and sun-steeped glades the coming tempest lours. His success, as Walter Pater suggests, in painting these vain and perishable graces of the drawing-room and garden-comedy of life, with the delicate odour of decay which rises from the soil, was probably due to the fact that he despised them. The whole age of the Revolution lies between these irresponsible and gay courtiers in the scènes galantes of Watteau and the virile peasant scenes in the "epic of toil" painted by Millet. In this room hangs his Academy picture, the Embarkation for Cythera, 982, L. wall, its colour unhappily almost worn away by over cleaning. His pupils, Pater (1696-1736), and Lancret (1690-1743), imitated his style, but were unable to soar to the higher plane of their master's genius. The former is represented by a Fête Champêtre, 689, R. wall: the latter by the Four Seasons, 462-465, R. wall; on the L. wall, 468, The Music Lesson, and 469, Innocence, both from the Palace of Fontainebleau. The Fête Galante dies with these artists whom we shall meet again better represented in the Salle La Caze. A famous contemporary of Pater and Lancret and first painter to the king was Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752), grandson of Noël Coypel (1629-1707), and son of Antoine (1661-1722), both of whom are represented in the Louvre (Rooms XIV.-XVI., 157-166, and 167-175), His Perseus and Andromeda, 180, hangs R. of the entrance of this room. Charles André Vanloo (1705-1765), known as Carle Vanloo, (whose grandfather, Jacob Vanloo, is represented by two pictures, 2451, 2452, hung among the Dutch artists in Rooms XXIV. and XXVI.), enjoyed a great vogue in his day. His facile drawing and riotous colour temporarily enriched the language with a new verb—to vanlooter. 899, on the L. wall, A Hunting Picnic, is an admirable specimen of his supple talent. The flaunting sensuality of François Boucher (1703-1770), and of Jean Honoré Fragonnard (1732-1806), who lavished undoubted genius and ignoble industry in the service of the depraved boudoir tastes of the Pompadours and Du Barrys that ruled at Versailles, are seen here and in the Salle la Caze in all their eloquent vulgarity. That Boucher had in him the elements of a great painter may be inferred from the charming little sketch, 30, R. wall, Diana, and from the excellent interior, 50A, L. wall, Breakfast. His popular pastoral scenes, executed with amazing facility, with their beribboned shepherds and dainty shepherdesses, are exemplified in 32 and 33, R. wall, and 34 and 35, L. wall. Other works by this fluent servant of La Pompadour are 31, R. wall, Venus commanding Vulcan to forge arms for Æneas, and 36, L. wall, Vulcan presenting them to Venus. Boucher with all his faults was a grand decorative artist of extraordinary versatility, but the loose habits and careless methods of his later days are reflected in slovenly drawing and waning powers of invention. Reynolds, who visited him in Paris, noted the change, and describes how he found the artist at work on a large picture without studies or models of any kind, and on expressing his surprise, was told by Boucher that he did in earlier days use them, but had dispensed with them for many years. Fragonnard, who on his return from Rome, had set about some canvases in the grand traditional style of the earlier masters, of which an example may be seen in 290, R. wall, Coresus[218] and Callirrhoe, soon perceived that fame lay not in that direction, and devoted himself with exuberant talent and unconscionable facility to satisfy the frivolous tastes and refined animality of royal and courtly patrons. For it was a time when life was envisaged as a perpetual feast of enjoyment; a vision of roguish eyes and rouged and patched faces of sprightly beribboned and perfumed gallants, playing at shepherds and shepherdesses, of luxurious sensuality untrammelled by a Christianity minus the Ten Commandments, soon to be hustled away by the robust and democratic ideals of David. Another early work of Fragonnard in this room is 291, R. wall, The Music Lesson: some of his more characteristic productions we shall meet with in the Salle La Caze. A somewhat feeble protest against the prevailing vulgarity and debasement of contemporary art was made by Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) and Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) in their rendering of scenes of domesticity and of the pathos of simple lives. Chardin is well seen in this room in his laborious studies of still life, 89 and 90, L. wall, diploma works, and in 91 and 92, same wall, The Industrious Mother, and Grace before Meat. The last, a delightful work, won for the artist Diderot's powerful advocacy, and made him the popular interpreter of bourgeois intimacies. Other patient studies of still life are: 95, 96, 101, and 102; and R. wall 94. On the same wall hang, 97, The Ape as Antiquary, and 99, The Housewife. If Chardin touches the border-line between sentiment and sentimentality, Greuze (end wall) in 369, Return of the Prodigal; 370, A Father's Crime; and 371, The Undutiful Son, certainly oversteps it. Each of these became the theme of extravagant eulogy and didactic preachments by Diderot, his literary protagonist, who hailed him as a French Hogarth making Virtue amiable and Vice odious. An even more equivocal note is struck (L. wall) in 372A, The Milkmaid; and 372, The Broken Pitcher, where as Gautier acutely remarks, the artist contrives to make Virtue exhale the same sensual delight as Vice had done, and to suggest that Innocence will fall an easy victim to temptation. Madame Du Barry was much attracted by the latter picture and possessed a replica of it. Other works and studies, R. wall, by the artist are in this room. 368, end wall, Severus Reproaching Caracalla, was painted as a diploma picture. But Greuze essayed here a flight beyond his powers: to his profound disgust the Academy refused to admit him as an historical, and classed him as a genre painter. No survey of eighteenth century French painting would be complete without some reference to Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), the famous marine and landscape artist, whose paintings of the principal ports of France are hung in the Musée de la Marine on the second floor. Here we may distinguish among some score of his works: 921, The Bathers; 923, A Landscape; and 932, A Seascape: The Setting Sun, all on the L. wall.

Grace before Meat.
Chardin.
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It will now be opportune to make our way to the La Caze collection. We pass out from the end of this room and descend the Escalier Daru to the first landing; then ascend L. of the Victory of Samothrace to the Rotonde, pass direct through the Salle des Bijoux, and turn L. through Room II. to