About the artwork

A contemporary conceptual twist on Francois Boucher’s painting "Madame de Pompadour at Her Toilette" (1758). Art critics of the French Rococo period feared Boucher’s sensual work, displaying seductive cosmetics as an art of identity formation would corrupt impressionable young women. This resonates with present day concerns of the negative impact of mass media on image. This photograph highlights the shifts in the production and meaning of art and the boom in our modern consumerist beauty industries. The Marquise’s limited tools and accessories of ribbons, sprays of flowers, powder box, white puff, rouge, bracelet, white lace, pink ribbon bows, low cut bodice and cosmetic brush, loaded with blusher are replicated with modern equivalents that display the excessive beauty paraphernalia that is available to the 21st century woman at her dressing table, captured by digital technology. Hair clips, false nails, hair pieces, bust enhancers, nail varnish, false eyelashes, eyelash curlers, mascara wands, tissues, cotton wool, lip gloss, eyeshadow, powder puff, glues, brushes, blusher, compact mirror etc are sculpted to re-create the composition and modern technology is used to mimic the outline and background of the original painting.