A Game of Quadrille - YCBA Collections Search

Hubert-François Gravelot, 1699–1773, French, active in Britain (1733–45), A Game of Quadrille, ca. 1740

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Creator:: Hubert-François Gravelot, 1699–1773
Title:: A Game of Quadrille
Date:: ca. 1740
Materials & Techniques:: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:: 25 × 30 inches (63.5 × 76.2 cm), Frame: 32 × 36 3/4 inches (81.3 × 93.3 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund, in honor of Brian Allen, Director of Studies, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (1993-2012)
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B2011.34
Classification:: Paintings
Collection:: Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:: B2011.34FR
Subject Terms:: apron | bows (costume accessories) | buckles | card game | chairs | coats | conversation piece | costume | curtains | dresses | envy | fan (costume accessory) | fichus | food | furniture | genre subject | interior | leisure | maid | men | mob caps | paintings | pink (color) | purple | quadrille | red | Rococo | rug | servants | stockings | sword | tables (support furniture) | tea service | tray | wigs | women
Access:: Not on view
Link:: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:64065
Export:: XML
IIIF Manifest:: JSON

Hubert-François Gravelot was a pupil of Francois Boucher before being summoned to London in 1733 to design and engrave book illustrations in the fashionable French style. He quickly joined the circle of William Hogarth, who was deeply engaged with the latest art from France, despite cultivating a xenophobic persona. Gravelot collaborated with Francis Hayman on a number of projects, including designing moralizing paintings to decorate Vauxhall Gardens, a popular London pleasure ground. This is one of the models Gravelot painted for Hayman to copy, and it contains a subtle condemnation of the vice of idleness. The elite coterie fritters away their daytime playing cards by contrast to the maid and black slave (wearing a metal collar), who must work to serve them. Gravelot also taught drawing at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy and had a decisive impact on young British artists, especially Thomas Gainsborough.

Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)

In a tastefully appointed room, three ladies and three gentlemen are engaged in a round of quadrille, a card game developed at the French court in the early eighteenth century. At right, a maid and an enslaved servant are about to serve tea (the latter carries a kettle, as does the page in Hogarth’s "A Harlot's Progress", displayed nearby). Gravelot, who was born and trained in France, came to London in 1733 to pursue a career as a painter and book illustrator. Gravelot’s "A Game of Quadrille" became well known through a large copy displayed at Vauxhall Gardens, London’s premier pleasure ground at the time. This large version was one of approximately fifty pictures made to decorate the Gardens’ “supper-boxes,” where visitors dined.

Gallery label for Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14)

Hogarth and Europe (Tate Britain, 2021-11-01 - 2022-03-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Figures of Empire: Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-10-02 - 2014-12-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

[ Advertisement ] Pelham Galleries, Apollo, vol. 163, no. 532, June 2006, p. 27, N1 A54 vol. 163+ OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

After the Paintings in Vauxhall, London Daily Post and General Advertiser, 10 June 1743, p. 2, Available online: 17th and 18th Century Burney Collection [ORBIS]

Brian Allen, Francis Hayman, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1987, p. 135, no. 64, NJ18 H3324 A54 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Amal Asfour, Gainsborough's vision, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool [England], 1999, p. 62, NJ18 G16 A74 1999 (YCBA) [YCBA]

British Art, Lowell Libson Ltd., 2012 , Lowell Libson Ltd., London, 2012, pp. 12-15, DealerCat Lowell Libson (YCBA) [YCBA]

David Coke, Vauxhall Gardens, a history , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2011, pp. 103, 109, 364-65, app. 1, # 4, fig. 79, DA689.G3 C65 2011 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 42, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://britishart.yale.edu/sites/default/files/inline/Figures%20of%20Empire_booklet_FINAL.pdf [YCBA]

Figures of Empire : Slavery and Portraiture in Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Britain, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2014, p. 42, V 2556 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Desmond J.V. Fitz-Gerald, Gravelot and His Influence on English Furniture, Apollo, vol 90, August 1969, p. 141, N1 A54 89:2/90:1 (YCBA) (OVERSIZED) [YCBA]

Flavour of French Rococo in England, The Times (London), 9 July 1968, p. 6, Available online: Times Digital Archive Also available on Microfilm: Film An T482 (SML) [ORBIS]

Game of Quadrille, Apollo, vol 163, June 2006, p. 27, N1 A54 163:2 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sir Lawrence Gowing, Hogarth, Hayman and the Vauxhall Decorations, Burlington Magazine, vol. 95, no. 596, January 1953, pp. 11, 17, fig. 23, N1 B87 vl. 95 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Notable Works of Art Now on the Market : Supplement, Burlington Magazine, vol 97, December 1955, pp. 10-11, Pl. XXVI, N1 B87 OVERSIZE (YCBA) Also available online : JSTOR [YCBA]

Slavery and Portraiture in 18th-century Atlantic Britain, [Website] , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2015, https://interactive.britishart.yale.edu/slavery-and-portraiture/ [Website]

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