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On a palatial terrace, recalling the grandiose architectural settings of Veronese and the ‘gallant companies’ of Hieronymous Janssens, a gentleman tunes a large lute, or ‘chitarrone’. To his left a girl, as yet too young for love, stands ignored like the bass viol beside her. The playful flirtation of a young man and woman behind is paralleled in the foreground by the game of a little girl with a dog. A second seated woman plays the guitar while behind her a gentleman, identified as Watteau’s friend the painter Nicolas Vleughels (1668–1737), leans proprietarily against her chair. Beyond the terrace figures stroll in a park landscape identified in the eighteenth century as the Champs Élysées (see Watteau P389). ‘Les charmes de la vie’ is the last and most elaborate treatment of a theme of love and music explored by Watteau across a series of related paintings.