Salon of 1781
The Salon of 1781 was an art exhibition held at the Louvre in Paris. Part of the regular series of Salons organised by the Académie Royale, it ran from 25 August to 25 September 1781. Held during the late Ancien régime period during the reign of Louis XVI, it featured submissions from noted painters, sculptors and architects. It took place while France was heavily engaged in the American War of Independence, and shortly after it closed French forces achieved a significant over Britain at the Siege of Yorktown. A portrait painting by Antoine-François Callet of the French Foreign Minister the Count of Vergennes, who had orchestrated the large coalition against Britain, was featured at the exhibition.
One of the most widely discussed paintings was Jacques-Louis David's Belisarius Begging for Alms. David had returned from Rome where he had been studying, and this painting features the Neoclassical style he was noted for. The work's positive reception marked a turning point in his career. David's rival François-André Vincent, who had made a major impression at the Salon of 1779, was less successful with The Intervention of the Sabine Women.
Nicolas Bernard Lépicié contributed a genre painting The Departure of the Poacher. Anne Vallayer-Coster submitted four still lifes and two portrait paintings. Hubert Robert displayed Fire at the Opera House, recording the aftermath of the recent blaze at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. Likely inspired by the recent fire, Pierre-Antoine Demachy exhibited a much older depiction of the fire that had burned down the Théâtre de la foire in Saint-Germain in 1762.
In sculpture Jean-Jacques Caffieri displayed a bust of the seventeenth century playwright Molière, which was negatively compared to one Jean-Antoine Houdon had featured at the Salon of 1779.