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This is the second of Lancret’s series of paintings depicting The Four Ages of Man and represents Adolescence (L'Adolescence). A young lady stands in the centre of the painting in a grand circular room with tall windows. She admires herself in the mirror held up by a young page while her hair is decorated with bows and flowers. She is so absorbed in her own image that she does not notice her wealthy admirer has been distracted by a pretty young lady adjusting her stocking. He opens his hands as though appealing to her, while she turns and looks up at him with a coquettish glance. The French word for stocking, un bas, in eighteenth-century slang also meant female genitalia. Her revealing dress further emphasises the painting’s subject of sexual desire.