Vanloo

Techniques - oil on canvas

Place - England

Dimensions - Height 111 cm Width 88 cm Depth 9.8 cm

Object Type - Although this is technically a portrait, the image of a young woman at a window with a pet bird in a cage was a frequently employed motif in popular paintings and prints of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Sometimes the women depicted were actresses or courtesans.

People - Margaret Woffington, (1718-1760), popularly known as `Peg', and the most famous actress of her day, enjoyed a lively and unconventional life. Various artists painted her, and this is almost certainly a portrait of her, although many pictures of attractive young women of that period are wrongly thought to be of her. This portrait is not signed, but the delicate treatment of the flesh tones and the sensitive rendering of the costume justify the attribution to Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1684-1745). He was so successful as a portrait painter, by 1738 he had to give five sittings a day at his studio in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and prospective sitters were forced to apply six weeks in advance.