Straus Family Foundation and Lord and Lady Ridley-Tree. Organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Musee de Picardie, Amiens, the exhibition is curated in Santa Barbara by SBMA director Robert Frankel and made possible by the general support of Robert K. The exhibition will provide a rich overview of French painting from the end of the reign of Louis XIV to the fall of the French monarchy in the mid-Nineteenth Century. – “From the Sun King to the Royal Twilight: Painting in Eighteenth Century France from the Musee de Picardie, Amiens,” a selection of approximately 80 works from the collection of the Musee de Picardie, Amiens will open at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) on April 24. Oil on canvas courtesy of the American Federation of the Arts. “The Rape of Europa,” Francois Boucher, 1732-34. Oil on canvas courtesy of the American Federation of Arts. “Still Life with Three Herring,” Jean-Simeon Chardin, 1731-33. On on canvas courtesy of the American Federation of the Arts.

“Louis XIV in Coronation Dress,” studio of Hyacinthe Rigau y Rios, called Rigaud, circa 1704-10.

Twilight of the sun king