Dinner after the hunt

Marianne Roland Michel described Lajoüe as the ‘perfect representative of Rococo’, with his graceful groupings of sumptuous architecture, fountains, trees and aristocratic or exotic figures. Part of his genius lay in his theatrical construction of space, with elegant swirls and swags leading the eye through the composition.
Here it is clear that the artist has engaged with one of Nicolas Lancret’s most important works, Le déjeuner de jambon, commissioned by Louis XV in 1734 for the King’s private dining room at Versailles. This was painted as a pendant to Jean-François de Troy’s Déjeuner d’huitres,, which, as well as being a supreme example of its genre, is also feted as being the first painting to show a bottle of champagne. Both paintings are now in the collection of the musée Condé in the Chateau de Chantilly. The dining room was the centre of activity in the King’s private quarters or petits cabinets, and was used almost exclusively for meals after the hunt, one of the King’s main passions. It was to these rooms that he withdrew when the pomp of the court became too overwhelming, and the honour of dining there was seen as equal to that of riding in the State carriages.
The paintings included in the design of the petits cabinets would have had a particular cachet, and it is possible that the present work may have been executed by Lajoüe at the request of one of the King’s close friends who knew Lancret’s Déjeuner de jambon from the hedonistic royal dinners. The relationship between the two artists, direct contemporaries of one another, is something that, despite art historical attention, is still not fully understood. It is unquestionably the case that a cross pollination of ideas can be seen in their oeuvres, and Roland Michel has suggested that they may have collaborated on works such as A Scene from le Comte d’Essex, in which Lajoüe would have provided the architectural setting and Lancret the figures (M. Roland Michel, Lajoüe et l’Art Rocaille, Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1984, p. 76).