Hubert-François Gravelot, 1699–1773, French, active in Britain (1733–45)
Title:
A Game of Quadrille
Date:
ca. 1740
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
25 × 30 inches (63.5 × 76.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund, in honor of Brian Allen, Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (1993-2012)
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2011.34
Gallery Label:
Hubert-François Gravelot was a pupil of Francois Boucher before being summoned to London in 1733 to design and engrave book illustrations in the fashionable French style. He quickly joined the circle of William Hogarth, who was deeply engaged with the latest art from France, despite cultivating a xenophobic persona. Gravelot collaborated with Francis Hayman on a number of projects, including designing moralizing paintings to decorate Vauxhall Gardens, a popular London pleasure ground. This is one of the models Gravelot painted for Hayman to copy, and it contains a subtle condemnation of the vice of idleness. The elite coterie fritters away their daytime playing cards by contrast to the maid and black slave (wearing a metal collar), who must work to serve them. Gravelot also taught drawing at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy and had a decisive impact on young British artists, especially Thomas Gainsborough. Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)
