The Adoration of the Skulls

Twelve hooded penitents kneel, sit and prostrate themselves in a columned hall before an altar piled with three skulls, the nearest bowing so low his hood hides his face as he lifts a long cross toward the relics, while others in chains pore over an open book or reach out barefoot across the cool stone floor — a memento mori of monastic devotion painted with the loose, expressive touch that gives the Rococo its air of swift and effortless execution. Michel-François Dandré-Bardon (1700–1783), professor at the Académie royale and history painter to the French court, painted the canvas about 1733 to 1734; the mint-green curtain drawn across the lower columns and the pearl-white walls with their arched doorway set the solemn rite within a stage-like architectural capriccio in the manner of Pannini. The picture belonged to Rizson before Lewis Einstein owned it in Paris and gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1956. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.