Salon of 1761

The Village Bride by Jean-Baptiste Greuze.

The Salon of 1761 was an art exhibition held at the Louvre in Paris. Staged during the reign of Louis XV and at a time when the Seven Years' War against Britain and Prussia was at its height, it reflected the taste of the Ancien régime during the mid-eighteenth century. The biannual Salon was organised by the Académie Royale. Jean Siméon Chardin was in charge of choosing hanging locations for the two hundred or so works on display.[1] A number of submissions were Rococo in style. The art critic Denis Diderot wrote extensively about the Salon.[2]

The exhibition was notable for the paintings of Jean-Baptiste Greuze who displayed fourteen works including The Laundress and The Village Bride.[3] François Boucher submitted a pastoral work Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing.[4] The Swedish artist Alexander Roslin produced portraits both of Boucher and his wife Marie-Jeanne. Louis-Michel van Loo exhibited his Portrait of Louis XV, now a lost work but with several contemporary copies surviving.[5] Joseph Vernet displayed two versions of View of Bayonne, part of his Views of the Ports of France series. Charles-André van Loo exhibited Mary Magdalene in the Desert and Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays's The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, which were praised by Diderot.[6] [7]

Sculptures on display included Nymph Drying Her Hair by Louis-Claude Vassé, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[8] Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne exhibited a bust of Mademoiselle Clairon, an actress of the Comédie-Française.[9] A total of thirty three painters, eleven engravers and nine sculptors took part in the Salon.[10] It was followed by the Salon of 1763.

Gallery

• 
  The Laundress by Jean-Baptiste Greuze
• 
  View of Bayonne by Claude-Joseph Vernet
• 
  Portrait of Louis XV by Louis-Michel van Loo
• 
  Portrait of Louise-Élisabeth of France by Jean-Marc Nattier
• 
  Portrait of the Marquis De Marigny by Alexander Roslin
• 
  The Sliced Melon by Jean Siméon Chardin
• 
  Jar of Apricots by Jean Siméon Chardin
• 
  Basket of Wild Strawberries by Jean Siméon Chardin
• 
  Portrait of François Boucher by Alexander Roslin
• 
  Portrait of Marie-Jeanne Boucher by Alexander Roslin
• 
  Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing by François Boucher
• 
  Allegory in Honour of the Publication of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle by Jacques Dumont le Romain
• 
  Nymph Drying Her Hair by Louis-Claude Vassé

References

1. Bailey p.11
2. Rosenblum p.51
3. Bailey p.14
4. Rosenblum p.51
5. https://wallacelive.wallacecollection.org/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=65411&viewType=detailView
6. Levey p.3
7. Schechter p.110-11
8. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/205413
9. Levey p.93
10. Levey p.3

Bibliography

• Bailey, Colin B. Jean-Baptiste Greuze: The Laundress. Getty Publications, 2000.
• Levey, Michael. Painting and Sculpture in France, 1700-1789. Yale University Press, 1993.
• Rosenblum, Robert. Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art. Princeton University Press, 1970.
• Schechter, Ronald. A Genealogy of Terror in Eighteenth-Century France. University of Chicago Press, 2018.