Gallery Label This is an oil sketch for a picture painted in 1737 to decorate Louis XV's dining room at the château of Fontainebleau. The finished canvas (Louvre, Paris) has been cut down and no longer retains the shaped top and bottom indicated here. The verve and freshness of the sketch reflect Vanloo's training and extended activity in Italy.
Provenance [Wildenstein, ?Paris, until 1909]; David David-Weill, Paris (1926–41; sold to Wildenstein); [Wildenstein, New York, 1941–43; sold to Brewster]; Robert Dows Brewster, New York (1943–d. 1995; posthumous sale, Sotheby's, New York, May 19, 1995, no. 113, for $244,500 to Colnaghi); [Colnaghi, New York, 1995; sold to MMA]
Exhibition History Paris. Salon. September 1737.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century," October 5–December 31, 1983, No. 46.
References Gabriel Henriot. "Peintures." Collection David Weill . 1, Paris, 1926, pp. 371–73, ill., identifies it as a sketch for the large decoration commissioned for the dining room at Fontainbleau and later transferred to the Louvre, Paris; notes that Charles Parrocel's "Halte de Grenadiers à cheval de la Maison du Roi" (also Louvre), commissioned as the pendant to Van Loo's large composition, was also exhibited at the Salon of 1737.in "Carle Vanloo (1705–1765) [in issue titled: Carle Vanloo, Jean Restout: Les lithographies de paysages en France à l'époque romantique]." Archives de l'art français 19 (1938), p. 68, no. 122.Carle Vanloo, premier peintre du roi . Exh. cat., Musée Chéret, Nice. Nice, 1977, p. 42, no. 50, ill.The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century . Exh. cat., High Museum of Art. Atlanta, 1983, pp. 9, 15, 113, no. 46, ill., notes that the composition of the small oil sketch is more vertical than that of the Louvre picture, and that no pose in the sketch is identical with that found in the finished painting.French Rococo Painting: A Notable Exhibition in Atlanta 119 (January 1984), pp. 9–10, ill., notes that previous to the Atlanta exhibition the picture had not been seen since it left the David-Weill Collection in the mid-1920's.Important Old Master Paintings . Sotheby's, New York. May 19, 1995, no. 113, ill. (color), quotes Mary Taverner Holmes (Nicolas Lancret, Frick Museum 1996, p. 76): "if any artistic theme can be said to epitomize the reign of Louis XV, the hunt picnic is that theme... being invented in response to the King's obsession with hunting"; observes that the sketch "differs considerably from Vanloo's final painting whose composition was expanded horizontally to fit a specific space in the King's dining room at Fontainebleau".in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1995–1996." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 54 (Fall 1996), p. 35, ill. (color).in The Wrightsman Pictures . New York, 2005, pp. 172–75, no. 49, ill.
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