Nicolas Lancret: Dance Before a Fountain

$20.00 at The Getty Museum.

Mary Tavener Holmes With a conservation note by Mark Leonard In a garden glade before a grand fountain, surrounded by a musical party, an elegant woman in a lustrous white gown dances as part of a foursome, raising her eyes to the viewer as if extending an invitation to the dance. This is the enticing scene in the Getty Museum's painting Dance Before a Fountain by Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743), an excellent example of the fête galante, a genre that reached its peak of popularity in France during the first half…