Madame de Pompadour – Images of a Mistress

Colin Jones

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Madame de Pompadour was one of the most powerful women of her era. Born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, she became, through her own intelligence and the scheming of her friends, mistress to King Louis XV of France. In an age when France dominated the European artistic scene, Madame de Pompadour, an enthusiastic patron of the arts, commissioned the very best of her country’s painters and sculptors to portray her. This fully illustrated biography pays particular attention to the ways in which Pompadour idealized her own image and explores the fascinating personality of a woman who became a legend in her own lifetime.