The French Comedians  1721

The painting was engraved with the title French Comedians, playing a tragi-comedy. The principal male figure wears an old-fashioned formal costume: a hat with plumes, a wig, and a fringed, skirted silver garment lavishly embroidered with palmettes. In the eighteenth century this costume would have been appropriate for a subject from antiquity. The heroine dismisses him, re...