Existing comment:
Animated Painting of Saint-Ouen
1759
French
This idyllic image of Saint-Ouen is a tableau animé (animated painting); the format was fashionable among French aristocrats of the eighteenth century. The painting was likely a jewel in the collection of Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV. Her coat of arms, a tower, adorns the original carved, gilded, and silvered frame, a splendid work of art in its own right. Applied figures in the fore- and middle ground -- laundresses, anglers, and boats -- can move across the surface of the painting, powered by a hidden mechanism. |