Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard
Bernard d'Agescy
1770–1790
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 81.3 × 64.8 cm (32 × 25 1/2 in.); Framed: 105.5 × 89.9 × 11.5 cm (41 1/2 × 35 3/8 × 4 1/2 in.)
- Genre
- oil on canvas
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
paintingpoetrypaintcanvasgenre paintingwomanoil on canvasfrenchloveLeisureoil paint (paint)painting (image making)pearlspainting techniquesMusicletters (correspondence)interioroil paintingeuropean paintingbookdresses18th Century
About
This painting depicts a young woman lost in reverie after reading the letters of the ill-fated medieval lovers Heloise and Abelard. The objects on the table beside her—a letter, a sheet of music, and a book of erotic poetry—hint at a life of leisure and a susceptibility to love. In this early picture, Auguste Bernard drew upon history paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Charles Le Brun, as well as Parisian traditions of genre painting and portraiture pioneered by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Bernard worked in Paris in the early 1780s and studied in Italy for several years. Upon his return to Paris, he found his career frustrated by the French Revolution and the emergent fashion for the more austere Neoclassical style.