Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment: French Art from the Horvitz Collection

In 18th-century France, debate emerged about the role of women in society. This debate, known as the Querelle des Femmes, or ‘Woman Question’, was one of the most contentious topics during the Enlightenment in France, an age when rational thought, expressed in language, science, and philosophy, began to challenge tradition and question faith as a way of understanding the world. This exhibition, with more than 120 works from the Horvitz Collection of French art in the United States, focuses on the Querelle des Femmes as process of self-realisation. Paintings, drawings, and sculpture by renowned 18th-century artists such as Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, as well as the lesser-known Le Prince, Cochin, Vestier, and others, trace the stages of women’s lives at the dawn of modernity. Find out more about the ‘Becoming a Woman’ exhibition from the Crocker’s website.