OLLIVIER, Michel-Barthélémy - b. 1712 Marseille, d. 1784 Paris

French painter. He served his apprenticeship with Carle Van Loo before going to Spain in 1734 with van Loo’s nephew, Louis-Michel, who was appointed court painter to King Philip V that year. Ollivier returned to France in 1763 and joined the Académie de St Luc, Paris, where he exhibited a portrait of his wife in 1764. In 1766 he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and he became the official painter of Louis François I, Prince of Conti (1716-76). His four major surviving works were executed for this new patron: Afternoon Tea at the Temple; and Feast Given to the Prince of Brunswick-Lüneburg at l’Isle-Adam in 1766, Stag Caught in the Water in front of the Château of l’Isle-Adam and Supper of the Prince of Conti (all Versailles, Château). The first three of these pictures were shown at the Salon of 1777, as was Telemachus and Mentor (untraced).

In 1769 and 1771 he showed two versions of the Death of Cleopatra; in 1767 he exhibited a Massacre of the Innocents; and to the Salon de la Correspondance of 1782 he submitted a picture of Henri IV and the Duke of Sully (all untraced). Apart from these history paintings, Ollivier regularly exhibited portraits and attractive, finely coloured conversations espagnoles - exotic, two-figure genre pieces. The main features of his style are his felicitous and effective choice of warm colour harmonies and his meticulous and delicate brushwork.

Afternoon Tea at the Temple

The painting depicts an English-style tea in the Four-Mirror Salon of the Palais du Temple in Paris in 1766.

The salons, places of conversations in sophisticated social circles in Paris and the provinces, played an important role in 18th-century cultural life. Artistic undertakings, problems of decoration, and literary endeavours all became topics in the salons. It is interesting to note that the term designating social gatherings was also applied to the dominant mode of artistic exhibition, the famous Salons of painting.