Happy Old Age
Louis Jean François Lagrenée (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1771
Materials
Oil on copper
Measurements
406 x 330 mm (16 x 13 in)
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732294
Summary
Oil painting on copper, Happy Old Age by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, the elder (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805), 1771. This polished depiction of family life centres on a beautiful young woman suckling an infant. A second child coddles a white dove at her knees while a bearded man looks on. The picture has presumably deliberate religious resonances, closely resembling compositional conventions for representing the Holy Family, with the Virgin and Christ Child, Infant Baptist, and Saint Joseph. The white dove is a Christian symbol of the Holy Ghost in the Trinity. The painting was bought directly from the artist by the Hoare family for the sum of 720 French Livres under the title L'heureuse vieillesse.
Provenance
Commissioned by the Duc de Choiseul (1719 – 1785) and bought directly from the artist by the Hoare family, thence by descent; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946.
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Louis Jean François Lagrenée (Paris 1725 – Paris 1805), artist