*This painting is sold but the artist is regularly available in our inventory		Jean-Frédéric Schall* Strasbourg 1752 – 1825 Paris Louis XIV of France declaring his love for Louise de la Vallière & Louis XIV with Louise de la Vallière in the Bois de Vincennes Oil on canvas 14 x 19 1/4 inches (35.6 x 48.9 cm) Each Jean-Frédéric Schall was a French painter.  He studied at the Ecole Publique de Dessin in Strasbourg around 1768, and in 1772 was admitted to the Académie Royal in Paris, where he was a pupil of Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié between 1776 and 1779.  He did not become a member of the Académie and so could not exhibit at the Salon until the French Revolution.  He worked for private patrons, producing erotic and pastoral subjects in a style influenced by François Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard and Pierre-Antoine Baudouin.  Many of these paintings achieved popularity in the form of engravings.  His most distinctive paintings are single figures of dancers and young ladies in soft, picturesque landscape settings.  In 1793 and 1794 he painted the Heroism of William Tell (Strasbourg Museum) but this politically engaged subject was exceptional in his output.  Although he continued to paint erotic scenes such as the Peeping Toms, his later paintings have a delicate, evocative character that suggests the influence of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon.  The moralizing theme and detailed finish of the False Appearance (Strasbourg Museum), which was awarded a prize in the Salon of 1798, demonstrates Schall’s ability to adapt both style and content to changing tastes.  He also illustrated narrative scenes from historical and literary sources, from which series of prints were made, notably by Charles-Melchior Descourtis.  Despite the variety of styles in which he worked, Schall is chiefly of interest as a belated exponent of the Rococo, whose work became a major source for the Rococo Revival at the time of his death.  In our pair paintings that clearly refer to the Rococo style, Jean-Frédéric Schall has composed a pair of genre scenes, depicting King Louis XIII in his pursuit of a woman.  In the first painting, one of the king’s courtly retainers is presenting a flower arrangement to the woman.  The king and a few of his courtly retainers are gathered nearby watching her as she is reaching out for the flowers.  The king’s head is slightly tilted back as he is trying to meet the gaze of the woman.  The woman in return is shyly looking at the basket with the flowers, her rosy cheeks indicating that she is indeed flattered by the king’s gesture.  In the second painting we find the king and the woman standing arm in arm.  The woman’s head is lowered as the king is looking admiringly at her.  In the background several courtly retainers are waiting with the horses, while the king is having a moment of privacy with the woman, perhaps saying his goodbyes to her.  The subjects’ extraordinary costumes, the luscious fabrics and the attention to detail in their expressions, clearly demonstrate Schall’s painterly skills.