The Fortune Teller
Georges de La Tour (French, Vic-sur-Seille 1593–1653 Lunéville)
There are a number of de La Tour paintings at The Met. And one I like particularly more than this one called THE PENITENT MAGDALENE. But this painting, THE FORTUNE TELLER, always makes me giggle. The fatuous, pompous, skeptical, wealthy, young, doughy, prudish man turns his nose up at the old hag of a fortune teller, not realizing he is being totally ripped-off in a pick-pocketing scam by one of her accomplices. de La Tour was fascinated by light and its properties (as are/have been most painters, of course) but the dramatic lighting of this painting reminds me of the kind of stage lighting I am used to but predates de La Tour by some 250 years.
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