Imagined scenes of daily life by Antoine Watteau, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Francois Boucher, Louis-Leopold Boilly, and other 18th-century French artists are the subject of this important new study. The wide range of these artists' works encompasses domestic subjects both grand and intimate, portraits and fashion plates, and depictions of stylish entertainments, seductions, and sentimental tales. The examples span the century, from the time of Louis XIV to the French Revolution. Fifteen distinguished scholars present their latest research into the contexts and meanings of French genre painting during this period. The authors offer a variety of critical and historical perspectives, covering such topics as the relationship of genre painting to contemporary life and to sexuality, sentiment, and sensibilite; its patrons and collectors; its popularization through reproduction in the print trade; its relation to the ideals of the dominant Royal Academy, history painting, and portraiture; its contemporary critical reception; and its resonances through subsequent centuries, continuing to our own time.