A Girl at a Window
- Artist: Louis-Léopold Boilly
- Date: about 1799
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "A Girl at a Window" by Louis-Léopold Boilly. Painted around 1799, it's a beautiful example of an exercise in illusionism, where Boilly demonstrates how one medium can look like another.
Notice how the painting imitates the look of a monochrome print, with subtle effects of light and dark achieved without using lines. The artist has used a grey-blue mount with his signature around the image to enhance the illusion even further.
The subject itself is a young girl sitting on a stone window ledge, surrounded by various objects that reflect her interests in optics and observation. There's a telescope, an eyeglass, and even a small plant and bunch of carrots on the wall behind her.
Boilly was an expert in trompe l'oeil, but here he's not trying to trick us into thinking we're looking at an actual print. Instead, he's showing off his technical virtuosity with oil paint, depicting objects with meticulous detail and highlighting his skill in painting reflective surfaces.
The style of the painting is heavily influenced by the 'fine painters' of 17th-century Holland, such as Gerrit Dou and Casper Netscher, who often used similar framing devices in their work.
See it in person
A Girl at a Window hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
