Allegory of Charity
- Artist: Jacques Blanchard
- Date: 1637
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the Allegory of Charity by Jacques Blanchard. Painted in 1637, the work was originally a single, large canvas that was split up sometime in the eighteenth century. It wasn’t until two and a half centuries later that the two halves were reunited at The Courtauld, giving us the chance to see the composition as the artist intended.
Blanchard was a standout figure in seventeenth‑century France, and this piece shows his deep engagement with the themes that fascinated him. He had spent a brief but influential trip to Italy, where the gentle palettes of Venetian painters left a lasting impression. That influence can be seen in the soft, luminous colours that fill the scene. At the same time, Blanchard absorbed the dramatic, sensuous figure styles he encountered in Paris during the period when Peter Paul Rubens was working there. The figures in this painting carry that Rubenesque dynamism, especially the young woman at the center, whose tender care for the children conveys the very essence of charity.
The oil on canvas is rendered with a subtle layering technique that gives the skin and fabric a delicate, almost translucent quality. Blanchard’s use of light emphasizes the gentle movement of the figures, while the background hints at a pastoral setting that grounds the allegory in a familiar, almost domestic scene.
Overall, “Allegory of Charity” is a brilliant synthesis of Blanchard’s Italian color study and Rubenesque figure drawing, brought together in a narrative that feels both intimate and universal.
See it in person
Allegory of Charity hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
