ABSTRACT
The wave, in its literal and metaphorical meanings, is a particularly suitable term to introduce the central figure of this article: Madame de Pompadour. Associated with rococo,2 the style in mid-eighteenth-century French art, Madame de Pompadour exerted a power in culture not to be underesti mated. Painted in pale pinks and blues, amidst undulating garlands of flowers and cupids, Madame de Pompadour could easily be dismissed, as the historiography about her shows, as being as capricious as the rococo style itself. When Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the later Madame de Pompadour, was presented at the French court in 1 745 as the official mistress of Louis XV, it caused an uproar. She evoked a host of contrasting and contradictory comments, marked by overt hostility or acknowledgment of her considerable qualities. I will argue that class is often invoked to explain this controversy, whereas her expert handling of culture as a domain of influence and contestation was just as much at issue.
