Dance before a Fountain

In a luxuriant park adorned with a monumental fountain, two couples perform a country dance to the music of a rustic bagpipe, while on either side other couples play out the game of love in its stages of anticipation, entreaty, and reward. The subject is the fête galante, an invention of the 1700s — elegant figures in a pastoral landscape, seemingly uninhibited by the stiff conventions of formal society. Lancret’s fluid brushstroke shows in the shimmering highlights of the costumes and the play of their opulent colors against the harmony of the landscape. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.