Rodama: a blog of 18th-century & Revolutionary France

After Pierre Gobert, Mademoiselle de Charolais as penitent / Franciscan monk   (94cm x 72cm).   Auctioned in 2005, current whereabouts unkno...

Madame de  La Pouplinière by Quentin La Tour, Musée Antoine-Lécuyer, Saint-Quentin, c.1741 [ Wikimedia ]      It feels high time to cheer ...

Detail from Greuze's  L'Enfant gâté (Louvre) The story of Bouret and his dog has been made famous by Diderot in Rameau' s Nephe...

This portrait, by Louis-Michel Van Loo, is from the collection of the late  couturier  Hubert de Givency which is to be auctioned by Christi...

I have had a reasonably long, and very successful career, and I believe that I shall be remembered with regret, even accorded some glory. Wh...

In his career as Farmer-General, the great chemist Lavoisier, exemplified the professionalism and dedication to public service shared by so ...

Portrait of Helvétius from  Ickworth (N.T.)  studio copy of the full length portrait by Van Loo exhibited in the salon of 1755.   Claude-Adr...

There are two conditions of person that have greater weight  in society than in former times, particularly in fashionable social circles.  T...

 The account of tobacco manufacture in the Encyclopédie, is based on practice at the tobacco works in Paris, which was adjacent to  the Hôte...

This post is based on a lecture given in 2011 by Paul Smith, a specialist in industrial archaeology with the Direction générale des patrimoi...