What is the Laughing Cavalier not wearing? The great British art quiz

1. 

   Which fictional character bought a reproduction of Thomas Lawrence’s (1769-1830) portrait of George IV?

   1. Jane Eyre

   2. Dorian Gray

   3. Becky Sharp

   4. Philip Pirrip (Pip)

2. 

   The French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who is represented at the Wallace Collection with no less than 21 paintings, commanded the highest prices of any painter of his day. Which fictional character sees a painting by Greuze at the house of his or her rival?

   1. Sherlock Holmes

   2. Bridget Jones

   3. Bertie Wooster

   4. Elisabeth Bennett

3. 

   Which of the following items do NOT appear on the doublet worn by the sitter in The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals (c 1581-1666)?

   1. Arrows

   2. Lovers’ knots

   3. Butterflies

   4. Flaming cornucopiae

4. 

   Adriaen Brouwer (c 1605-38) was something of a ‘painter’s painter’. Which of the following artists collected no less than 17 of his paintings?

   1. Jan Steen

   2. Andy Warhol

   3. Peter Paul Rubens

   4. Anthony van Dyck

5. 

   This oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was designed for a tapestry and shows a famous defeat in battle. But whose defeat is it?

   1. Defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium

   2. Defeat of Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge

   3. Defeat of the French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain by Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar

   4. Defeat of the Night King at the Battle of Winterfell

6. 

   Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) was a painter and civil engineer. Which of the following was he not associated with?

   1. Improvements to street lighting

   2. Designing fire-fighting equipment

   3. Painting views of London

   4. Embankment works on the River Seine

7. 

   Which of the works listed below was NOT influenced by Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing?

   1. William Carlos Williams’s Portrait of a Lady

   2. Disney’s Frozen

   3. Susan Stroman and John Weidman’s Contact: The Musical

   4. David’s Oath of the Horatii

8. 

   The Wallace Collection has no fewer than four portraits of Mrs Robinson, a famous actress of the Georgian period. What was her nickname?

   1. Lady Macbeth

   2. Desdemona

   3. Perdita

   4. Mother of Dragons

Solutions

1:C - In William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair of 1848, Sharp orders from Colnaghi "the finest portrait of the King that art had produced" and chose "the famous one … in a frock coat with a fur collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his curly brown wig." Image: George IV, 1822, Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), the Wallace Collection, 2:A - Sherlock Holmes sees Greuze’s La Jeune Fille à l’Agneau at the home of Professor James Moriarty, who keeps the painting above his desk. Realising that a professor would never be able to afford such an expensive painting, Holmes deduces that Moriarty must have another, illegal source for his immense wealth. Image: Innocence, early 1790s, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), the Wallace Collection, 3:C - The jovial gentleman in Frans Hals’s Laughing Cavalier wears a costume embroidered with lovers’ knots, flaming cornucopiae, and arrows. These emblems are all symbolic of the pleasures and pains of love, leading to suggestions that this work was painted as a betrothal portrait. Image: The Laughing Cavalier, 1624, Frans Hals (c 1582–1666), the Wallace Collection, 4:C - Rubens was a great admirer and supporter of Brouwer. Rubens offered him financial support and acquired many of his paintings, with the result that Brouwer ended up being the second-best represented artist in Rubens’s great collection, after Rubens himself. Image: A Boor Asleep, c1630-c1638, Adriaen Brouwer (1605-38), the Wallace Collection, 5:B - Emperor Constantine defeated co-Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, north of Rome. Maxentius drowned when the bridge collapsed beneath the weight of his fleeing army. The sketch is one of 12 scenes designed by Rubens for a tapestry cycle illustrating the life of Constantine the Great. Image: The Defeat and Death of Maxentius, c1622, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Wallace Collection, 6:D - Van der Heyden was registered in Amsterdam as a painter in 1661. According to an early biographer, he travelled to London and painted views of the Royal Exchange and the Monument. He was a great asset to the city of Amsterdam, where he was involved in improving street lighting and fire-fighting equipment. In 1672 he constructed the first fire engine, and wrote a book on the subject, published in 1690. Image: View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam, c1668-72, Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712), the Wallace Collection, 7:D - David’s Oath of the Horatii, a paragon of neoclassical art, promoting revolutionary values, is the only work listed here not to contain a reference to Fragonard’s iconic rococo picture, The Swing. Image: The Swing, 1767, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), the Wallace Collection, 8:C - Robinson was nicknamed Perdita after her lead role in David Garrick’s production of A Winter’s Tale. Image: Mrs Mary Robinson (Perdita), 1781, Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88), the Wallace Collection, 9:, 10:

Scores

1. 6 and above.

   Congratulations – you certainly know your old masters.

2. 0 and above.

   Unlike the cavalier, you won't be laughing at this score.

3. 3 and above.

   It's no masterpiece, but not a bad result either.