La Camargo Dancing

La Camargo Dancing celebrates the Parisian ballerina Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo, the first dancer to leap, who set fashionable Paris alight in the 1720s and 1730s. Nicolas Lancret, one of the leading painters of the French fete galante after Watteau, here catches her suspended in a spirited pirouette before a shaded woodland audience of elegant park-goers. Painted about 1730, the canvas is a perfect emblem of Rococo gaiety, combining theatrical movement, shimmering satin and the light-hearted pursuit of pleasure that defined the age of Louis XV.