Movement · 1720–1790
Rococo
Pastel pinks, powder blues and silvery greens. Prussian blue, the first modern synthetic pigment, arrives in the early 1700s and makes blue cheap.
Across 22 works, the colors are mostly brown (55%), black (17%) and gray (14%). On average the canvases are mid-toned, moderately saturated and warm. Signature colors, used far more here than across the collection: dark taupe, dark golden umber, taupe, umber and dark golden olive.
Color print
The swatches covering most of these canvases, averaged over every work, dark to light.
- MG 177 dark taupe 8.8% of canvas
- MG 222 charcoal 6.9% of canvas
- MG 219 bistre 6.7% of canvas
- MG 176 taupe 6.2% of canvas
- MG 223 soot 6.1% of canvas
- MG 175 stone 3.7% of canvas
- MG 185 dark golden umber 3.5% of canvas
- MG 184 umber 3.5% of canvas
- MG 218 graphite 3.2% of canvas
- MG 168 dark amber brown 2.7% of canvas
- MG 194 dark golden olive 2.5% of canvas
- MG 193 golden olive 2.4% of canvas
- MG 174 warm grey 2.2% of canvas
- MG 167 brown 2.2% of canvas
- MG 217 iron 2.1% of canvas
- MG 169 dark brown 1.9% of canvas
Measurements
Artists
- Antoine Watteau 1684–1721
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 1696–1770
- Canaletto 1697–1768
- Jean Siméon Chardin 1699–1779
- François Boucher 1703–1770
- Thomas Gainsborough 1727–1788
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard 1732–1806
Works
- The Embarkation for Cythera, 1717
- Pierrot, 1718
- The Shop Sign of Gersaint, 1720
- The Stonemason's Yard, 1725
- The Ray, 1727
- Le Buffet, 1728
- The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, 1730
- Boy with a Spinning-Top, 1738
- The Banquet of Cleopatra, c. 1743
- View of the Bacino di San Marco from the Punta della Dogana, 1743
- Brown Odalisque, 1740s
- Mr and Mrs Andrews, 1748
- La Naissance de Vénus, 1754
- Madame de Pompadour, 1759
- Deposition, 1767
- The Immaculate Conception, 1767
- The Swing, c. 1767
- A Young Girl Reading, 1770
- The Blue Boy, 1770
- The Lock, c. 1777
- Portrait of a Lady in Blue, 1780
- The Stolen Kiss, 1790