The Four Ages of Man: Old Age

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Notes

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This is the fourth and final painting in Lancret’s series of The Four Ages of Man, entitled Old Age (La Vieillesse). Lancret dispensed with the usual depiction of old people warming themselves indoors before an open fire to take the scene outdoors. A young woman rejects an old man’s advances while an old woman spins and another sleeps. A seated man with white hair and a thick beard strokes a dog while another man watches the antics of their companion with the young girl.

A work by or after the Le Nain brothers may have inspired Lancret’s depiction of Old Age. The figures in Lancret’s Old Age are seated in the courtyard of a rustic cottage and of much more modest means and dress than those in the earlier paintings in the series.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

The Four Ages of Man: Old Age

Date

by 1735

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 34.6 x W 45.4 cm

Accession number

NG104

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by Lt.-Col. J.H. Ollney, 1836/7

Work type

Painting

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