Bonnets and Boobs: The Old Filth of the Wallace Collection

The gilded Rococo interiors of the Wallace Collection are a long way from the dusty corridors of traditional art institutions. The small building behind Selfridges in Marylebone is jammed with treasures collected by Richard Seymour-Conway, the fourth Marquess of Hertford. The works were inherited in 1870 by his son Sir Richard Wallace, whose widow bequeathed the entire collection to the nation in 1897 on the condition that there must be free admission to both the collection and any exhibitions. These ornate works embody the height of French frivolity, as paintings packed with exposed flesh compete for visual impact with the marble and gold that surrounds them.

Much of the work spans the era of Lord Nelson’s infamous affair with Lady Emma Hamilton in Naples, Hogarth’s Progresses of Harlot and Rake and the many bawdy caricatures of cartoonists Rowlandson and Gillray. At the high end of the art canon, what does the Wallace Collection hold that caused ladies to blush behind their fans and men to straighten their cravat knots?

The Temptation of St Hilarion. Dominique Papety, 1844

Saint Hilarion (c.291-371) was a hermit who founded many monasteries in Palestine and endured temptations sent by Satan. One of these “torments” is pictured in this small oil painting by Papety.

This work is extremely popular among today’s visitors and features on a variety of merchandise in the Wallace Collection shop including postcards and tea sets.

 

 

Venus and Adonis. Pierre-Paul Prud’hon,1812

This was commissioned by Napoleon’s second wife Empress Marie-Louise in 1810 for the Tuileries Palace near the Louvre. Despite being shown at the Salon of 1812 it was never paid for nor delivered and stayed with the artist, who was appointed a member of Napoleon’s Legion of Honour.  Prud’hon was naturally proud of this imperial commission, and was also employed to paint two ceilings for the Louvre.

The scene references Greek tragedy by evoking the pleasure of the romance between Venus and Adonis before the subsequent horror of him being killed by a wild boar.

In true Game of Thrones style Venus’s full nakedness is displayed prominently across two-thirds of the composition while her hand and Adonis’s leg conveniently hide anything that might have given little Napoleon cause to blush.

The Swing. Jean-Honore Fragonard, 1768

Also known as “The Happy Accidents of The Swing”, what appears to be an innocent pastoral scene holding all the retch-worthy daintiness of the Rococo in fact shows a scandal. An aristocratic husband, originally meant to be a priest, pushes his wife in a swing while her lover hides in the bushes beneath her billowing skirts.

This commission from a courtier was originally given to the artist Gabriel Francois Doyen, who deemed it too distasteful for his own brush and instead passed it to Fragonard.

An Allegory of True Love. Pieter Pourbus, c. 1547

An allegory of true love? Sure it is. In the top right of this cropped image – which is the centre of the full painting – an older man called Sapiens or “Wisdom” embraces the lady Fidutia or “Fidelity”. According to the Wallace Collection’s interpretation this supposedly represents spiritual love being “sanctified by Christian matrimony”  while “the other figures warn the viewer of the folly of carnal love.”

Most viewers will be quick to miss this moral message and instead will focus on the plight of another man who has been drawn back from the table into the arms of two ladies. Disgusting…

by Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

 

 

 

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