The Interior of a Customs House
| The Interior of a Customs House | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Nicolas Bernard Lépicié |
| Year | 1775 |
| Type | Oil on canvas, genre painting |
| Dimensions | 98 cm × 164 cm (39 in × 65 in) |
| Location | Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid |
The Interior of a Customs House (French: L'Intérieur d'une douane) is a 1775 genre painting by the French artist Nicolas Bernard Lépicié.[1] It depicts the bustling courtyard of a custom house in Paris. It's grand scale may have been an attempt by Lépicié to blend genre scene with the more prestigious history painting.[2]
The painting was displayed at the Salon of 1775 at the Louvre in Paris and was enthusiastically praised by the art critic Denis Diderot. Today it is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.[3] Lépicié was also commissioned by the by the Controller-General of Finances Joseph Marie Terray to produce a companion work for the painting The Interior of a Market which he completed four years later and exhibited at the Salon of 1779.[4]
References
- ^ Conisbee p.20
- ^ Bailey p.316
- ^ https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/lepicie-nicolas-bernard/courtyard-customs-house
- ^ Bailey p.316
Bibliography
- Bailey, Colin B. The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting. Yale University Press, 2003.
- Conisbee, Philip. French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century. National Gallery of Art, 2007.