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Les Femmes Savantes
Leslie, Charles Robert - Enlarge image
Les Femmes Savantes
- Object:
Oil painting
- Place of origin:
London (painted)
- Date:
1845 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Leslie, Charles Robert (R.A.), born 1794 - died 1859 (painter (artist))
- Materials and Techniques:
Oil on canvas, with carved wood and composition frame
- Credit Line:
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
- Museum number:
FA.117[O]
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, Room 122, case WN
Object Type
Oil paintings such as this with subjects taken from popular literature steadily replaced commissions for history paintings in the early 19th century. The public and most collectors of modern works started to prefer lighter and sometimes more sentimental themes.
Subjects Depicted
Leslie frequently used themes from humorous literature. Here he is illustrating a scene from a play by Molière, Les Femmes Savantes ('The Learned Ladies'), in which the conceited Trissotin reads a pretentious sonnet of his own composition to his admiring audience of literary ladies, the self-styled 'learned ladies' of the title. When this picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1845, it was called A Scene from Molière and several lines from the play were quoted in the catalogue.
People
Although Leslie began his career as a history and portrait painter, he soon turned to literary themes. The collector John Sheepshanks (1787-1863) owned 17 paintings by Leslie with subjects taken from well-known authors such as Shakespeare, Chaucer and Molière.
