The Bible Lesson, or L'instruction Maternelle

Depicting the artist's family, and thought to show them reading the Pilgrim's Progress rather than the Bible as its original title suggests, this picture can be dated to the early years that Mercier lived in York, and placed together with a group of 'Fancy Pictures' reflecting a national taste for simple, moving and sentimental scenes. The Bible Lesson was engraved by J. Faber in 1744, during the decade of Mercier's greatest activity. The taste in England at this time for domestic subjects that tended to be simple, sentimental, and anecdotal in content reflected the influence of such great French painters as Jean-Baptist-Siméon Chardin to whom this composition was attributed for many years (see, for instance, Chardin's The School Mistress, 1731-32, The National Gallery, London).