10 
House & Garden 
THE MARQUISE 
Among the collectors that France can write in her 
Golden Book of Art-Lovers ranks high the name of 
the Marquise de Pompadour. Without her patronage, 
as Voltaire observed, the culture of her time would 
have found itself in a sorry plight under the rule of 
a king whose thoughts had little or nothing to do 
DE POMPADOUR 
with the finer things of life—that king who stood 
at the palace window looking forth as the cortege 
of the Pompadour passed by in a drizzling rain 
and remarked, “It is a wet day for the Mar¬ 
quise!” This portrait is by Francois Boucher 
(1703-1770), who was the court painter to Louis XV 
