The various arts, including Painting, Sculpture, Music and Architecture, are shown here begging the Destiny, represented here together with the three Fates, not to put an end to the life of Madame de Pompadour. The powerful noblewoman, already a favorite of the French sovereign Louis XV, was also an avid art collector and an important patron. Her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, was superintendent of the arts under the king when her sister fell ill with the respiratory tract. She commissioned this painting from Charles-André Van Loo, the king’s first painter, in 1764, which turned out to be almost an epitaph, as Pompadour died the same year. Oil on canvas, The Frick Pittsburgh.
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