Benoist Stehlin

Bold, dashing, unblended strokes are used for highlights and almost symbolize, rather than describe, the sepals of buds, or the irregularities of anemone and ranunculus foliage.

When rinceau borders are used, they build in the corners into arabesques that spray their energy into space in a series of diminishing dots that suggest the foam from a cresting wave.

Robert Sayer, in The Florist (London, 1760) said that flowers should be ‘ripened to a degree of looseness subject to be folded and play in the wind’, and no soundboard painting better illustrates this dictum.

The Stehlin painter’s curved lines get lower, leaner, and longer, more forceful and energetic, as his personal style gains in authority from 1765 onwards.

The 1750 harpsichord was owned at one time by Bernard Jumentier (1749–1829), composer, music teacher and maître de chapelle at the cathedral of Saint-Quentin, where the instrument is now in the Musée Antoine Lécuyer.