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Thursday 4 December 2008

Fluff and granite

Boucher and Chardin: Masters of Modern Manners
The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, W1, until 7 September

Alan Green: Joan Miro
Annely Juda Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, W1, until 18 July 

But this is not the end of the wonders in this room. On the same wall as the Bouchers is another Chardin, entitled ‘The Morning Toilet’ (1741), also on loan from Stockholm, depicting a little girl and her guardian about to leave for Sunday Mass. Chardin’s superb judgment of colours is evident throughout, especially in the winning combination of the little girl’s pale-blue shawl over a soft, salmon-pink dress. Boucher wouldn’t aim for such subtlety, being interested in more overtly splendid decoration or (at his worst) rococo whimsy. But he could certainly draw, witness the exquisite chalk portrait of Charlotta Sparre, done in three colours (red, white and black) on buff paper, a technique Boucher derived from Watteau, whose drawings he used to copy at the beginning of his career. (Incidentally, when not on loan this drawing is currently with Day & Faber, and is for sale.)

On the opposite wall are two more Chardins, a pair of genre paintings from the world behind the fashionable scene: ‘The Cellar Boy’ and ‘The Scullery Maid’. Both are loaned by the Hunterian, and look tremendous together in this context, marvels of understatement, illuminated by the slow burn of the red bottle-carrier in ‘The Cellar Boy’. Also on this wall is a lovely little painting by Lancret, who pioneered a return to the reality of French life after the fantasies of Watteau. His subject chimes with the Boucher opposite, being another morning scene, intimate, charming and gently erotic. Now return to the first room for a comparison with Hogarth (his marvellous painting ‘The Western Family’, from Dublin) and a detailed study of one of the exhibition’s themes, the introduction of tea-drinking into society, here illustrated through literature and artefacts. A really enjoyable collection of pictures in a well-managed small exhibition. Recommended.

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