Salon of 1761

The Salon of 1761 was an art exhibition held at the Louvre in Paris. Staged during the reign of Louis XV and at a time when the Seven Years' War against Britain and Prussia was at its height, it reflected the taste of the Ancien régime during the mid-eighteenth century. The biennial Salon was organised by the Académie Royale. Jean Siméon Chardin was in charge of choosing hanging locations for the two hundred or so works on display.^[1] A number of submissions were Rococo in style. The art critic Denis Diderot wrote extensively about the Salon.^[2]

The exhibition was notable for the paintings of Jean-Baptiste Greuze who displayed fourteen works including The Laundress and The Village Bride.^[3] François Boucher submitted a pastoral work Shepherd and Shepherdess Reposing.^[4] The Swedish artist Alexander Roslin produced portraits both of Boucher and his wife Marie-Jeanne. Louis-Michel van Loo exhibited his Portrait of Louis XV, now a lost work but with several contemporary copies surviving.^[5] Joseph Vernet displayed two versions of View of Bayonne, part of his Views of the Ports of France series. Charles-André van Loo exhibited Mary Magdalene in the Desert and Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays's The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew, which were praised by Diderot.^[6][7]

Sculptures on display included Nymph Drying Her Hair by Louis-Claude Vassé, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[8] Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne exhibited a bust of Mademoiselle Clairon, an actress of the Comédie-Française.^[9] A total of thirty three painters, eleven engravers and nine sculptors took part in the Salon.^[10] It was followed by the Salon of 1763.