Nicolas Lancret, A Lady in a Garden Taking Coffee with Some Children, c. 1742
National Gallery, London

 

Watteau's elegant fêtes galantes, finely painted and often exploring the vagaries of love, set the tone for much eighteenth-century French painting. And for whom is love not an important subject? He had several followers in the early decades of the century, the greatest of whom was Nicolas Lancret. A Lady in a Garden Taking Coffee with Some Children adapts the typical parkland setting of Watteau's fêtes galantes to the theme of familial love. Carefully aproned in case of a spill, a little girl is offered her first taste of coffee by her solicitous young mother. Against the little one's trepidation about this adult drink, her older sister's patience shows the confidence of her years. This picture is almost certainly not a portrait group, but an imaginary genre scene depicting ideal family life in a perfect setting.