French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century

Georges de La Tour's haunting depiction of a repentant Mary Magdalen gazing into a mirror by candlelight; Jean Siméon Chardin's perfectly balanced image of a young boy making a house of cards; Jean Honoré Fragonard's monumental suite of landscapes showing aristocrats at play in picturesque gardens—these are among the familiar and beloved masterpieces in the National Gallery of Art, which houses one of the most important collections of French old master paintings outside France. This lavishl...