Mme de Pompadour is best remembered for her patronage of the arts. The main focus of this book is on how she projected her own image for social and political reasons, and on how she was seen by others both during her lifetime and after her death. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, was one of the most powerful women of her era. Born in 1721 in a relatively humble milieu to a father whose identity has never been confirmed, she married a man who was possibly her cousin. At the age of 24, through her own intelligence and beauty as well as the scheming of her relatives, she became the official mistress of Louis XV of France. Even though their physical relationship ended after five or six years, she remained the King's confidante and companion until her death in 1764. She amassed both great wealth, which she lavished on the decoration of various chateaux, and enormous power with which she promoted those who pleased her and demoted, or had imprisoned, those who did not. In the process she attracted both admiration and vicious criticism, in France and abroad. Mme de Pompadour is best remembered for her patronage of the arts. The main focus of this book is on how she projected her own image for social and political reasons, and on how she was seen by others both during her lifetime and after her death. In an age when France dominated the European artistic scene, Mme de Pompadour employed the best of her country's painters and sculptors to portray her: Boucher, Nattier, Van Loo, La Tour, Pigalle and Drouais. Among the works illustrated here, masterpieces of the portrait genre, are the intimate portrait by the King's First Painter, Carle Van Loo, portraying her as a milkmaid, one of many guises she adopted to entertain Louis XV; Boucher's stunning full-length portrait, now in Munich; Pigalle's sculpture of her as Friendship made when the King was ceasing to find her sexually attractive and she was arranging ever younger girls for his bed; and the National Gallery's own beautiful painting by Drouais, showing the marquise in the last year of her life as a refined and respectable middle-aged woman. This beautiful book explores the personality of a woman who became a legend in her own lifetime, and explains how her sexual and political power influenced the most sophisticated and degenerate society in Europe of the time. Published to accompany an exhibition at the National Gallery, London from 16 October 2002 - 12 January 2003. The first serious and scholarly biography of Mme de Pompadour available in English since Nancy Mitford's 1950s biography; The first biography to integrate analysis of Pompadour's cultural policies and the cultivation of her image with her influence on politics; Lavishly illustrated; Wide appeal, especially for those interested in art history, gender studies and the history of eighteenth-century France. Was £7.99 Now £2.99