The Regency (1715-1723)

Since Louis XV was only five years old in 1715, Louis XIV's nephew, the Duke of Orléans , became regent. The court left Versailles to take up residence in Paris. Thus began a period marked by its liberalisation of institutions, religion and ethics, after the imposed rigour of the last years of the preceding reign. In the words of a popular song, "C'est le joli temps de la Regence / Où l'on fit tout , excepté pénitence" (It's the time of the Regency / When we can do everything, except penitence), but that did not stop Voltaire from being imprisoned in the Bastille in 1717. The ban on Italian comedy, formerly regarded as licentious, was lifted. In the political arena, the upper aristocracy, including one of its most famous representatives, the Duke of Saint-Simon, and Parliament hampered the government, which was helpless both in the face of such blanket opposition to change and in its difficult financial situation, aggravated by the failure of Law's state banking system.

According to the princess Palatine, the regent "loved the arts and, above all, painting." The refined, distant vision of Antoine Watteau and his two rivals, Pater and Lancret, , epitomise the spirit of the day. But, in spite of his excesses, the regent was Louis XIII's grandson and entertained a certain idea of grandeur. He thus appointed Antoine Coypel , the representative of what was then termed the grand genre , to be his First Painter.