Deserved Sorrows

Marguerite Gerard (1761-1837) was a French painter known as the sister-in-law and pupil of Jean-Honore Fragonard, whose precisely observed genre scenes of domestic life make her one of the most accomplished women painters of the late 18th century in France. Deserved Sorrows from 1788-1789 depicts a domestic scene in the precisely observed, elegant manner that distinguishes Gerard's best work from the more exuberant painting of her brother-in-law Fragonard. The 1788-1789 date places this in Gerard's most productive period, when she was producing the precisely observed genre scenes of domestic life that are her most accomplished works, and the title suggests a moral subject in the manner of the domestic genre painting that was popular in late 18th-century France.

Deserved Sorrows is important in the history of French painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, elegant manner that Gerard brought to domestic genre painting as one of the most accomplished women painters of the late 18th century in France. Gerard's domestic genre scenes—combining precise observation with the elegant handling she learned from Fragonard—represent one of the most accomplished traditions of women's painting in 18th-century France, and the 1788-1789 painting shows this tradition at its most accomplished.

Deserved Sorrows is Gerard's elegant domestic genre: a moral domestic scene rendered in the precisely observed manner of one of the most accomplished women painters of late 18th-century France. The 1788-1789 painting shows the combination of Fragonard's influence with Gerard's own precise observation and elegant handling.