La Lecture espagnole and La conversation espagnole were commissioned in oil by Madame Geoffrin for her chambre à coucher from Carle van Loo in October 1754, at a cost of 6000 livres. They were sold in the Autumn of 1772 to Catherine II of Russia, for the reputed figure of 36000 livres and remain in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. They were exhibited in the salon of 1755 (no's 5 and 18) and were first engraved by Jean-Francois Beauvarlet between 1769 and 1772. Beauvarlet's engravings en contre-partie (in reverse) almost certainly formed the inspiration for these Chinese mirror pictures, executed for the European market