Trompe l'oeil with Palettes and Miniature
Jean François de Le Motte
Date unknown · Oil on canvas · European Paintings
Playfully alluding to the artist’s own role as an illusionist is a recurrent theme of trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) paintings. On two palettes Le Motte has represented blotches of paint with paint, while he also uses the medium to represent a scene of two men huddling together, once as a painting within his painting, and again as an etching with mock signature lines. Trompe l’oeil subjects enjoyed popularity throughout eighteenth- and ninteenth-century Europe. Attributions for this painting have varied, but its similarity to signed and dated paintings in Dijon and Strasbourg suggest Le Motte’s authorship.
- Artist
- Jean François de Le Motte
- Date
- Date unknown
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971
