This is a painting by Gabriel Lemonnier in 1812, celebrating the famous salon of Madame de Geoffrin in 1755. As you can see from the legend below, she attracted the brightest lights of literature, philosophy, and natural philosophy to her dinners and discussions. Geoffrin had a reputation as a sympathetic listener and skilled manager of the conversation, and her salon held a high reputation as a place for the exchange of ideas. The bust, surveying the scene, is Voltaire. The gathering is hearing a reading of his new tragedy, L'Orphelin de la Chine [The Orphan of China].

Now for the historical corrections. First of all, no salon gathering had 53 guests. Madame de Geoffrin held her literary salon on Wednesday evenings, with dinner and readings and talk. Typically, a salon would gather 10 to15 guests. That her gatherings were literary meetings means that many of the scientists and mathematicians and inventors in the scene wouldn't have been there. In addition, several of those depicted were not in Paris, or were too young or too old for the date, or were dead. The whole scene is an imaginary construction -- many certainly were not there, many more unlikely, and never were so many conversants gathered at one particular salon evening. Prof. J. Lough, in his article “Lemonnier’s Painting, ‘Une Soirée Chez Madame Geoffrin en 1755,’” [ French Studies, XLV (July 1991), pp. 269-279] provides a wonderful analysis of the way salons functioned, and details the reasons why several of the figures would not have been there.

This is a oft-reproduced, famous image of The Salon, but take it as a romantic celebration of 18th century French intellectual life, done later without excessive worry about historical accuracy. As Prof. Lough writes, it is "clearly a haphazard selection of persons in the public eye in the period 1740-1780, regardless of whether they could have been assembled in one place at the same time." But the fact that Empress Josephine commissioned a painting of an intellectual gathering shows the high cultural position of the fashion for salons. And notice how scientists and other technical experts were in an esteemed cultural position.