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Seven elegantly dressed men and women sit and stand together in a landscape while being attended to by more men, who also tend to four dogs and four horses, in this horizontal painting. The people all have pale skin with flushed cheeks and delicate features. They gather in front of a grove of towering trees, the canopies of which reach the top edge of the painting and fill much of the sky in the top half of the composition. In front of the trees, one woman sits and one stands at the center of the painting. To our left of center, the seated woman wears a muted, lemon-yellow dress trimmed with white. The bodice has a high neck and a narrow waist, and her outer yellow jacket is unbuttoned. She wears a small black tricorn hat perched on gray curls. She sits with her body facing us, but she turns to look at a man to our left with big eyes. She reaches out with one hand to take a teacup topped with froth from a tray that man holds. He sits and leans his torso toward the woman, looking at her in profile. His coat is sapphire blue edged with gold. His and the other men’s hair curl around their ears and are tied at the nape of their necks with black ribbons. The other woman stands next to the first, to our right. Her hoop skirt and jacket are scarlet red over a shimmering, ice-blue bodice. Her body angles to our right, and she looks off in that direction in profile. Her brown hair is pulled up under a black cap topped with a red feather. She holds her skirts with her left hand, to our right. A man standing slightly behind her and to our left holds out a loose fist, and she rests her other hand on his. This man wears a fawn-brown coat over an ultramarine-blue waistcoat. He pins a black, gold-edged hat under one arm and looks at the back of the woman’s head. Two more people sit on the ground in front of these couples. A person to our left sitting facing away from us has brown hair and wears a blue jacket. One hand is planted on the hip and the other holds a black hat by the ground. The other is a man who faces us as he leans on one elbow. He wears a dark yellow jacket, and a black hat hides his eyes. He holds out a piece of food to the four dogs in the lower right corner of the painting. One dog strains forward to smell it. Another sniffs the ground, one looks at us, and the fourth looks back at the man holding the dogs’ leashes. Three men tend to three brown horses just beyond this. To our left, a man wearing burnt orange holds a bowl of peach-colored fruit near the left-most couple. A man behind him kneels and pours liquid from a pouch into a decanter. Two baskets are on the ground next to that man and another basket is slung over the back of a gray horse behind him. Grass and leafy vegetation grows to either side of the grouping. Green hills roll back to distant, hazy blue mountains along the horizon, which comes halfway up this composition. Puffy white and gray clouds swirl in the powder-blue sky above.

Nicolas Lancret

Picnic after the Hunt, probably c. 1735/1740

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 54

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 61.5 x 74.8 cm (24 3/16 x 29 7/16 in.)

framed: 84 x 98 x 8.9 cm (33 1/16 x 38 9/16 x 3 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.2.22

Artists / Makers

Nicolas Lancret (artist) French, 1690 - 1743

Image Use

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Provenance

Friedrich II, King of Prussia [1712-1786], Potsdam;[1] by descent in the imperial Hohenzollern family to Kaiser Wilhelm II [1859-1941], Berlin;[2] sold 1923 to (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold December 1946 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.

[1] The painting is included in Matthieu Österreich, Descriptions de tout l'intérieur des deux palais de Sans-Souci, de ceux de Potsdam et de Charlottenbourg, 1773 [1990]: no. 556.

[2] Two labels on an old backing board removed from the painting read "N. Palais 16032" and "Gen. Kat. No 5299." The latter corresponds to inv. no. GK 1 5299, Generalkatalog of the imperial collection, compiled in the late 19th century, information kindly provided by Dr. Christoph M. Vogtherr, curator of paintings, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam, 13 April 1999, letter to Nancy Yeide (NGA curatorial files).

[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2265.

Associated Names

August Wilhelm, Prince
Friedrich II (the Great), King of Prussia
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.
Wilhelm II, Kaiser

Exhibition History

1932: Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932, no. 186

1951: Wildenstein Jubilee Loan Exhibition 1901-1951: Masterpieces from Museums and Private Collections, Wildenstein & Co., New York, 1951, no. 23, repro.

1991: Nicolas Lancret: 1690-1743, The Frick Collection, New York; The Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1991-1992, no. 9, pl. 13.

2003: The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Altes Museum, Berlin, 2003-2004, no. 16, repro.

Bibliography

n.d.: Seidel, Paul. Gemälde alter Meister im Besitze seiner Majestät des deutschen Kaisers und Königs von Preussen. Berlin, n.d.: 199, no. 46.

1773: Oesterreich, Matthias. Beschreibung aller Gemählde, Antiquitäten, und anderer kostbarer und merkwürdiger Sachen, so in dene beyden Schlössern von Sans-Souci, Schlosse zu Potsdam und Charlottenburg enthalten sind. 1773: no. 556, as Das Frühstuck. Reprint Potsdam-Sanssouci: Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten, 1990.

1863: Parthey, Gustav Friedrich. Deutscher Bildersaal. Verzeichniss der in Deutschland vorhandenen Oelbilder verstorbener Maler aller Schulen. 2 vols. Berlin, 1863-1864: 2(1864):10, no. 10, as Jagdscene.

1875: Bocher, Emmanuel. Les gravures françaises du XVIIIe siècle; ou, Catalogue raisonné des estampes, eaux-fortes, pièces en couleur, au bistre et au lavis, de 1700 à 1800. 6 vols. Paris, 1875-1882: 4(1877):82, no. 556, as Le Déjeuner.

1883: Dohme, Richard. "Die Ausstellung von Gemälden älterer Meister im Berliner Privatbesitz. Die Französische Schule des XVIII. Jahrhunderts. II. Die Schule Watteau's." Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 4 (1883): 246, no. 6, as Jagd-Frühstück.

1900: Seidel, Paul. Les collections d’oeuvres d’art françaises du XVIIIe siècle appartenant à Sa Majesté l’empereur d’Allemagne roi de Prusse. Berlin, 1900: 93-94, no. 40.

1924: Wildenstein, Georges. Lancret. Paris, 1924: 99, no. 443, fig. 108.

1929: Osborn, Max. Die Kunst des Rokoko. Berlin, 1929: repro. 170, 610.

1938: Robiquet, Jean, et al. La Femme dans la peinture française, XVe-XXe siècle. Paris, 1938: 66, color repro.

1948: Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4.

1951: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 224, no. 100, repro.

1956: Einstein, Lewis. “Looking at French Eighteenth-Century Pictures in Washington.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 47, no. 1048-1049 (May – June 1956): 221, fig. 7, 224-225.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 352, repro.

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 180, pls. 172, 173 (detail).

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 106, color repro.

1962: Meisterwerke aus den Schlössern Friedrichs des Grossen. Exh. cat. Schlöss Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1962: 57, no. 46, as Das Jagdfrühstück.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 72.

1966: Canaday, John. "Watteau's Forbidden World." Horizon 8, no. 3 (Summer 1966): 76, repro., 78.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 63, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 186, repro.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 307-308, fig. 270, as The Repast of the Hunting Party.

1984: Posner, Donald. Antoine Watteau. Ithaca, 1984: 203, fig. 159.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 330, no. 440, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 220, repro.

1991: Holmes, Mary Tavener. Nicolas Lancret, 1690-1743. Edited by Joseph Focarino. Exh. cat. Frick Collection, New York; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1991-1992. New York, 1991: 50-51, 76-77, no. 9, pl. 13, 128-129, 152 n. 98, 154.

1992: Wintermute, Alan. "One of the Great Sponges: The Art of Nicolas Lancret." Apollo 135 (March 1992): 191.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 254, no. 206, color repro.

2004: Watteau et la fête galante. Exh. cat. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes. Paris, 2004: 246, 272.

2005: Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 56, fig. 37, 72 (not in the exhibition).

2006: Holmes, Mary Tavener. Nicolas Lancret: Dance Before a Fountain. Los Angeles, 2006: 1, 4, color fig. 4.

2009: Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 65, 288-291, color repro.

2011: Vogtherr, Christoph Martin. Französische Gemälde I: Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Lajoüe. Berlin, 2011: no. A 17, 683-685, 784, repro.

2014: Wile, Aaron. "Watteau, Reverie, and Selfhood." The Art Bulletin (2014): 8, fig. 10.