Picnic after the Hunt
Nicolas Lancret·probably c. 1735/1740
Historical Context
Lancret's Picnic after the Hunt from around 1735-1740 depicts the elegant aristocratic leisure of the hunt picnic — a social occasion that combined the masculine activity of the hunt with the feminine refinement of outdoor dining, creating an occasion for cross-gender social display. The hunt picnic was a standard subject of Rococo decorative painting, its combination of outdoor setting, fine food and wine, elegant dress, and relaxed social interaction providing ideal material for the genre's characteristic pleasures. Lancret's mature treatment of this subject shows his development of Watteau's fête galante into a more straightforwardly decorative and less psychologically complex register.
Technical Analysis
Lancret's technique renders the outdoor scene with warm, luminous tones and fluid brushwork. The figures are elegantly posed in a parkland setting painted with atmospheric, feathery strokes. The still-life details of the picnic are rendered with decorative precision, while the overall composition creates a sense of leisured, aristocratic pleasure.
Provenance
Friedrich II, King of Prussia [1712-1786], Potsdam;[1] by descent in the imperial Hohenzollern family to Kaiser Wilhelm II [1859-1941], Berlin;[2] sold 1923 to (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold December 1946 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] The painting is included in Matthieu Österreich, _Descriptions de tout l'intérieur des deux palais de Sans-Souci, de ceux de Potsdam et de Charlottenbourg_, 1773 [1990]: no. 556. [2] Two labels on an old backing board removed from the painting read "N. Palais 16032" and "Gen. Kat. No 5299." The latter corresponds to inv. no. GK 1 5299, Generalkatalog of the imperial collection, compiled in the late 19th century, information kindly provided by Dr. Christoph M. Vogtherr, curator of paintings, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam, 13 April 1999, letter to Nancy Yeide (NGA curatorial files). [3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2265.
