Crying Forfeits

Reynolds's Crying Forfeits from around 1770 represents a distinct category within his fancy picture production: genre scenes depicting children at play rather than posed in classical or allegorical settings. The game of forfeits — where players who broke the rules were required to perform comic penalties — was a standard entertainment at Georgian family gatherings, and Reynolds's image captures both the universal appeal of children's games and the specific culture of indoor entertainment that Georgian society had developed. Such genre scenes placed Reynolds in an interesting artistic dialogue: Dutch and Flemish genre painting of the seventeenth century had established the market for everyday domestic subjects, while the French tradition of Chardin and Greuze was developing it in more morally serious directions in Reynolds's own lifetime. Reynolds's approach to genre differed from both: he brought the compositional authority of the Grand Style to everyday subjects without striving for the philosophical weight of Greuze's narrative compositions. The Detroit Institute of Arts holds this canvas as part of a notable collection of Reynolds fancy pictures that demonstrates the breadth of his production beyond formal portraiture.

The genre scene captures childhood play with warm observation. Reynolds's handling creates a charming image of youthful spontaneity.