‘Conversation’ is a French word meaning a polite social gathering which had entered most European languages by the seventeenth century. The Dutch used the word conversatie to describe paintings of fashionable life, though they did not distinguish between imaginary and real scenes.

In English a ‘conversation’ or ‘conversation piece’ usually means a group portrait with less than life-sized figures, in a real setting, with some shared activity to bring the figures together and tell us something about them. In a simple portrait we are introduced to a person; in a conversation piece we eavesdrop upon them. A portrait is about individuals and their character; a conversation piece is about life-style and society.

One or two paintings in this exhibition may be satirical; the majority consciously celebrate the prosperity, elegance and pleasure of fashionable life in Holland and England.