Scène galante, Pilgrimage to Cytherea, 19th century

Antique painting representing a moment of leisure of the French aristocracy (Pilgrimage to Cytherea) anonymous French schoolteacher of the early 19th century, oil on canvas.

The composition of the scene is engaged by various characters, men, women and girls, caught in a joyful picture of everyday life animated by the carefree joie de vivre typical of the frivolous and worldly aristocracy.

Our painting is inspired by the so-called "scènes galantes", a pictorial theme that became so important in European pictorial culture from the first decades of the 18th century that it almost had the dignity of a pictorial genre.

It reflects a modus vivendi of the high society of the time, accustomed to the pleasures of life, to the ease of courtly well-being, between leisure, whims and various delights.

The clothes are those of the eighteenth century tradition, even if the painting was done in the early nineteenth century in an almost nostalgic tone.

The canvas is decorated with a beautiful French frame in gold leaf gilded wood, engraved beat.

Provenance: France (1820/40)

Measures: 125x100cm.