Artwork
The Sourches family
The Sourches family is an oil painting by the Rococo painting artist François-Hubert Drouais. It dates from 1756 and is held in the collection of the Palace of Versailles.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Together these motifs present the Sourches as a harmonious, cultivated household, blending familial intimacy with symbols of status, learning, and leisure.
The Sourches family is a group portrait depicting the family unit of the Sourches alongside a range of attributes that signal domestic refinement and aristocratic life. Among the figures shown are children, framed within a family grouping that emphasizes lineage and kinship. The surrounding iconography includes a tree, a dog, a parrot, a vase, and a sculpture, elements commonly associated with loyalty, exotic taste, cultivated nature, and classical learning in eighteenth-century portraiture.
Musical and educational pursuits are evoked through the inclusion of sheet music and a violin, situating the family within the cultural ideals of polite society. Together these motifs present the Sourches as a harmonious, cultivated household, blending familial intimacy with symbols of status, learning, and leisure.
The work was exhibited at the Salon of 1759, reinforcing its function as a public statement of the family's identity and social standing.
Technique & Style
The painting is executed in oil on canvas, a medium confirmed by the artwork's classification and material specifications. Its dimensions measure 324 centimeters in height by 284 centimeters in width, reflecting the scale typical of 18th-century French portraiture. The composition features a family group including a child, dog, parrot, and musical elements such as sheet music and violin, arranged within an interior setting that blends domestic and symbolic motifs.
These formal details align with the stylistic conventions of the Salon of 1759, where the work was exhibited, emphasizing clarity of line, balanced composition, and rich coloration characteristic of the late Rococo period.
History & Provenance
The painting The Sourches family was created in 1756 by François-Hubert Drouais. Executed in oil on canvas, the work measures 324 cm in height and 284 cm in width. It was first presented to the public at the Salon of 1759.
The artwork is currently held by the Museum of the History of France, located within the Palace of Versailles in France.
The painting is held by the Museum of the History of France at the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France. It is part of the national collections managed by the museums of Versailles and Trianon. The work carries the Joconde reference number 000PE012956. Historically, the portrait was first presented to the public at the Salon of 1759.
Context
The painting entered the Salon of 1759, marking its formal debut in the French capital's premier exhibition circuit.
Scholarship situates the work within the decorative ambitions of mid-eighteenth-century French interiors, reflecting contemporary tastes for intimate genre scenes enriched with symbolic objects.
Its inclusion in the royal collection at Versailles underscores its status as a visual emblem of aristocratic domestic life during the Ancien Régime.
Overview
François‑Hubert Drouais executed The Sourches family in 1756, an oil painting that captures a domestic scene set in a garden. The composition features a married couple seated on a bench with their three children, a small dog, and a perched parrot, all arranged within a tranquil landscape. The work belongs to the Rococo period and is part of the Versailles collection.
Artist & collection
Artist
François-Hubert Drouais (French pronunciation:; Paris, 14 December 1727 – Paris, 21 October 1775) was a leading French portrait painter during the latter years of Louis XV's reign.
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