Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

Leslie's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme depicts Molière's comic masterpiece of 1670 — the wealthy bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain who desperately wants to pass as a gentleman and is flattered, deceived, and exploited by the aristocrats and charlatans who surround him. The comedy of social aspiration — the gap between what one is and what one wishes to be — was as relevant to Victorian class society as to the France of Louis XIV, and Leslie's treatment reflects this contemporary resonance. Jourdain's famous discovery that he had been speaking 'prose' all his life without knowing it was one of the most celebrated comic moments in European theatrical history and a natural subject for pictorial illustration.

The scene is composed with the theatrical clarity of a stage setting. Leslie renders the comic protagonist's inappropriate finery with careful detail, while the supporting characters' reactions provide the comic commentary.