Decorative Panel the Toilet of Venus

The Flemish artist Marten Jozef Geeraerts found fame above all as a master of paintings in the grisaille technique. Those monochrome trompe-l’oeil works produced the illusion of marble carvings, bronze medallions or wooden bas-reliefs adorning doorways and fireplaces.
The decorative panels in the Hermitage collection date from his mature period, from the first half of the 1750s, when the artist attained perfection in the grisaille technique and was able to produce works that imitated several materials at once. The panels The Rest of Diana and The Toilet of Venus reproduce three quite different substances – marble, bronze and wood.