location_of_final_assembly a young girl reading
Rococo ( or ), less commonly roccoco , or " Late Baroque ", is an early to late French 18th - century artistic movement and style , affecting many aspects of the arts including painting , sculpture , architecture , interior design , decoration , literature , music , and theatre . It developed in the early 18th century in ___MASK96___ , France as a reaction against the grandeur , symmetry , and strict regulations of the previous Baroque style , especially of the Palace of Versailles , until it was redone . Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular , florid , and graceful approach to the Baroque . Their style was ornate and used light colours , asymmetrical designs , curves , and gold . Unlike the political Baroque , the Rococo had playful and witty themes . The interior decoration of Rococo rooms was designed as a total work of art with elegant and ornate furniture , small sculptures , ornamental mirrors , and tapestry complementing architecture , reliefs , and wall paintings . In the history of ___MASK4___ , the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century . It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history : classical antiquity , the medieval period , and the modern period . The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early , High , and Late Middle Ages . Young Girl Reading , or The Reader ( French : La Liseuse ) , is an 18th - century oil painting by Jean - Honoré Fragonard . It was purchased by the National Gallery of Art in Washington , DC in 1961 using funds donated by Ailsa Mellon Bruce , the daughter of Andrew W . Mellon , following her father ' s death . The Ancien Régime ( Former Regime ) was the monarchic , aristocratic , social and political system established in the Kingdom of ___MASK7___ from approximately the 15th century until the latter part of the 18th century (" early modern ___MASK7___ ") under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties . The term is occasionally used to refer to the similar feudal social and political order of the time elsewhere in ___MASK4___ . The administrative and social structures of the Ancien Régime were the result of years of state - building , legislative acts ( like the Ordinance of Villers - Cotterêts ), internal conflicts and civil wars , but they remained a patchwork of local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution ended the system . Oil paint is a type of slow - drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil , commonly linseed oil . The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit , and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried oil paint film . Oil paints have been used in ___MASK4___ since the 12th century for simple decoration , but were not widely adopted as an artistic medium until the early 15th century . Common modern applications of oil paint are in finishing and protection of wood in buildings and exposed metal structures such as ships and bridges . Its hard - wearing properties and luminous colors make it desirable for both interior and exterior use on wood and metal . Due to its slow - drying properties , it has recently been used in paint - on - glass animation . Thickness of coat has considerable bearing on time required for drying : thin coats of oil paint dry relatively quickly . The National Gallery of Art , and its attached Sculpture Garden , is a national art museum in Washington , D . C ., located on the National Mall , between 3rd and 9th Streets , at Constitution Avenue NW . Open to the public and free of charge , the museum was privately established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress . Andrew W . Mellon donated a substantial art collection and funds for construction . The core collection includes major works of art donated by Paul Mellon , Ailsa Mellon Bruce , Lessing J . Rosenwald , Samuel Henry Kress , Rush Harrison Kress , Peter Arrell Brown Widener , Joseph E . Widener , and Chester Dale . The Gallery ' s collection of paintings , drawings , prints , photographs , sculpture , medals , and decorative arts traces the development of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the present , including the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas and the largest mobile created by Alexander Calder . Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder . Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil , poppy seed oil , walnut oil , and safflower oil . The choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint , such as the amount of yellowing or drying time . Certain differences , depending on the oil , are also visible in the sheen of the paints . An artist might use several different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired . The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium . The oil may be boiled with a resin , such as pine resin or frankincense , to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss . Ailsa Mellon Bruce ( June 28 , 1901  August 25 , 1969 ), born in ___MASK35___ , was a prominent socialite and the daughter of the banker and diplomat Andrew W . Mellon . She served from 1921 to 1932 as her father ' s official hostess during his tenure as United States Secretary of the Treasury , and again when he was U . S . Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1932 - 33 . Jean - Honoré Fragonard ( 4 April 1732  22 August 1806 ) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility , exuberance , and hedonism . One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the " Ancien Régime ", Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings ( not counting drawings and etchings ), of which only five are dated . Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism .