Portrait painting was not a “skate” to Boucher. In his entire life he painted about a dozen portraits. Half of them depicts Madame Pompadour, which undoubtedly testifies to the close friendship between the artist and the mistress of the king. The picture you see before you is the last portrait of Madame Pompadour.
At one time this cloth hung in Versailles, and the death of the royal favorite was transferred to her brother. Despite the fact that Madame Pompadour loved Bouche very much and considered him a brilliant painter, she had no illusions about his abilities to write portraits. She responded to one of her portraits of Bush’s brush: “I look beautiful here, but not at all like myself.” It is necessary, however, to note the originality of the manner in which these portraits are written.
On the one hand, they are not devoid of the features of the traditional ceremonial portrait, on the other – colored by intimacy, the artist’s personal relationship to the model. By the time this portrait was painted, Madame Pompadour was no longer King’s mistress, although she retained all the privileges of the “official favorite.”
Being a “de jure” just a marquise, “de facto” she received honors appropriate to the duchess. However, from the portrait of 1759, looking at us, rather, not an overbearing and ambitious person, but intelligent, educated, with a subtle artistic taste, a lady. This was remembered by Bushe himself, as many contemporaries responded to her, pointing out that Madame de Pompadour does not have the arrogance or the eccentricity typical of the “birds of this flight”. On the contrary, everyone spoke with one voice of courtesy and tact of the most famous mistress of the king.
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