National Gallery, London
These masterly portraits of a polite morning routine conjure the beauty of ordinary moments – until this seemingly civilised ritual is obliterated by its historical context
A woman is teaching a child how to eat breakfast. They are seated at a small wooden table with a surface so polished you can see reflections of the metal coffee pot and porcelain tableware as the woman steadies the girl’s cup so she can dip a thick piece of bread into her milky coffee.
This is not just a civilised ritual but a civilising one: the child is being trained, just as her hair is disciplined with tight wrappings. This is Lyon, France, in 1754 and the pair taking their polite morning repast are enacting the new social style of the European cultural movement known as the Enlightenment. Inspired by the orderly “clockwork” universe described by Isaac Newton, this 18th-century ideology valued reason, sociability and manners. In Jean-Etienne Liotard’s masterpiece The Lavergne Family Breakfast, those values are expressed in the proper handling of fragile Japanese porcelain and the ability to dunk your bread without splashing yourself.
