In the catalogue, whereas we go at some length into the politico-historical background of Italy in the 1790s, we only touched rather briefly on the importance of Jean- Jacques Rousseau and his philosophical thoughts about women’s place in society. In fact, we can clearly see that this Gauffier is the epitome of Rousseau’s thoughts regarding women and the domestic environment and just like Greuze, but perhaps at a slightly more aristocratic level, Gauffier here represents the same theme. Picking Oranges is to some degree a feminist statement. On a recent visit Richard Rand, Associate Director at the Getty Museum, drew my attention to the sexual connotation of the way that the mistress of the house holds the two oranges with a plainly sexual connotation. Central to the composition this has been interpreted as representing her dominating influence over the household and indeed her husband is shown in the shadows, ‘off-stage’, to the right. Such a representation of female domination within the domestic environment is an echo of a painting by Francis Cotes which was the subject of our catalogue ‘A Winning End Game’ in 2013. In this latter composition representing a chess match, the lady of the house holds her husband in checkmate.

In 1761 Rousseau published ‘Julie, or the New Heloise’, in which he describes the ideal ‘private sphere’ where he portrays a woman who has learnt to value herself and become the virtuous model in her role as wife and mother just as in Picking Oranges. According to Rousseau the public domains for men were business, politics and war, while the private domains for women were the household and family. Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694) has stated that marriage is the ‘nursery of the human race’. His followers elaborating on this idea accentuated not only marriage’s procreative purpose but its role in the moral improvement of mankind. For Ami Lullan, 1695 to 1756, the top virtues a woman should aim for were attention to the management of the household, the ‘good order’ she keeps in her home and the care with which she tends to both her family and ‘the domestic economy’. All of these features and the fecundity of the mother portrayed are elements evident in Picking Oranges. Rousseau revalorises the ideal of the artisanal Eighteenth Century wife who works within her family home, the very cradle of Republican values.