I am obsessed with the luxury of the fabrics, bows, ruffles and utter GLOW of this piece in the Met’s collection: to me, it is so romantic, enhanced by the use of pastels.

This is a Coypel portrait of Marie Elisabeth de Séré de Rieux and her husband François de Jullienne. Julienne was a collector and patron of the rococo painter Antoine Watteau, with wealth that came from his father, who was a textile merchant.

Charles-Antoine Coypel was an official painter to Louis XV: if you think nepo babies are a new thing, Coypel’s father was the First Painter to the King, giving Coypel a glittering start.

His father died in 1722, with Coypel ascending to become the chief painter of the Duc d’Orléans, lodging at the Louvre, before taking up the mantle of premier peintre in 1747. He would also produce a body of literary work, and design tapestries for Manufacture de Gobelins, the best manufactory of tapestries in France at the time.