Parlez vous cock-ups?

Trust the French to get it all wrong! Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris is showing Public Portraits, Private Portraits 1770 - 1830 until 8 January 2007. This painting is used as an exemplar of what the blurb-writer is on about. The French call it Joshua Reynolds - Mrs Abington (1771). It's correct title is Sir Joshua Reynolds - Mrs Abington as Miss Prue (1771). The lady in the portrait is posing as Miss Prue, but this doesn't fit the blurb-writer's mandate. He or she salivates over Mrs Abington "sitting boyishly astride a Chippendale chair, with a coy finger to her lip", claims this to be the first painting "to show a casually posed woman with a come-hither look" (wrong) and that it "perverts the aristocratic codes of representation. The model could only be an actress..." Actress, yes, but all this witter hardly explains that the lady is actually posing as a soppy character: Miss Prue. And she isn't sitting astride the chair; she's sitting sidesaddle on it. Try sitting astride a chair with yards of gown and petticoats between your legs. You'd probably crack your teeth on the back of it! Let's hope the Royal Academy of Arts gets it right before this show opens in London on 3 February 2007. And 50% concessions! The French are offering only 80%, and in Euro thingies! Tightwads! The show hits the States on 18 May. Start campaigning now for 50%.