Two fête galante scenes, anonymous, c. 1795
painting, h 33.2cm × w 40.1cm × d 3.3cm More details
In reverse painting on glass, the image is painted on the back –foreground details first (in reverse to normal practice). In the 18th century, Chinese painters, particularly in Canton, specialized in this technique. One such artist copied these two scenes for Van Braam Houckgeest after the work of the renowned French painter François Boucher. They are still in their original 18th-century frames.