The term derives from ”’fancies”’, which the art critic and historian [[George Vertue]] used in 1737 to describe paintings by [[Philip Mercier]] such as ”Venetian Girl at a Window” or the series ”The Five Senses”, which incorporate a storyline or invented or imagined elements.<ref name=Tate/><ref>John Chu, [https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/past/mercierandfancypainting “‘Newly Invented Original Paintings’: Philip Mercier and the Origins of the British Fancy Picture”], lecture, [[Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art]], 13 June 2017.</ref> [[Joshua Reynolds]] coined the extended term ‘fancy pictures’ in 1788 for the works painted by [[Thomas Gainsborough]] in his final decade, particularly those depicting beggar and peasant children.<ref name=Tate>[http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/fancy-picture “Fancy picture”], [[Tate Britain]], retrieved 19 February 2020.</ref> Following his death, Gainsborough was initially best known for these pictures.<ref>[[Ellis Waterhouse|Ellis K. Waterhouse]], [https://www.jstor.org/stable/869320 “Gainsborough’s ‘Fancy Pictures'”], ”[[The Burlington Magazine]]”, 88.519 (June 1946) 134–41.</ref> Reynolds’ own fancy pictures, while using street children as models, have allegorical and classical titles such as ”Hope Nursing Love” and ”Venus Chiding Cupid”.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095810325 “Fancy picture”], Oxford Ready Reference, from ”The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists”, retrieved 19 February 2020.</ref> The sub-genre owes inspiration to [[Rembrandt]] and [[Bartolomé Esteban Murillo|Murillo]] and was influenced by 18th-century French works, particularly by [[Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin|Chardin]], [[Greuze]],<ref name=Oxford/> as Mercier had been influenced by European artists including [[Watteau]], but it is not a distinct sub-genre in French painting.<ref>Melissa Percival, ”Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination”, [2012], London / New York: Routledge, 2017, {{ISBN|9781315094007}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hy8rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71 p. 71].</ref>
The term derives from ”’fancies”’, which the art critic and historian [[George Vertue]] used in 1737 to describe paintings by [[Philip Mercier]] such as ”Venetian Girl at a Window” or the series ”The Five Senses”, which incorporate a storyline or invented or imagined elements.<ref name=Tate/><ref>John Chu, [https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/past/mercierandfancypainting “‘Newly Invented Original Paintings’: Philip Mercier and the Origins of the British Fancy Picture”], lecture, [[Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art]], 13 June 2017.</ref> [[Joshua Reynolds]] coined the extended term ‘fancy pictures’ in 1788 for the works painted by [[Thomas Gainsborough]] in his final decade, particularly those depicting beggar and peasant children.<ref name=Tate>[http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/fancy-picture “Fancy picture”], [[Tate Britain]], retrieved 19 February 2020.</ref> Following his death, Gainsborough was initially best known for these pictures.<ref>[[Ellis Waterhouse|Ellis K. Waterhouse]], [https://www.jstor.org/stable/869320 “Gainsborough’s ‘Fancy Pictures'”], ”[[The Burlington Magazine]]”, 88.519 (June 1946) 134–41.</ref> Reynolds’ own fancy pictures, while using street children as models, have allegorical and classical titles such as ”Hope Nursing Love” and ”Venus Chiding Cupid”.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095810325 “Fancy picture”], Oxford Ready Reference, from ”The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists”, retrieved 19 February 2020.</ref> The sub-genre owes inspiration to [[Rembrandt]] and [[Bartolomé Esteban Murillo|Murillo]] and was influenced by 18th-century French works, particularly by [[Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin|Chardin]], [[Greuze]],<ref name=Oxford/> as Mercier had been influenced by European artists including [[Watteau]], but it is not a distinct sub-genre in French painting.<ref>Melissa Percival, ”Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination”, [2012], London / New York: Routledge, 2017, {{ISBN|9781315094007}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=hy8rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA71 p. 71].</ref>
Eighteenth-century fancy pictures were an antecedent of Victorian sentimentalism; [[J. E. Millais]]’ paintings of children, such as his ”My First Sermon” and ”My Second Sermon”, modelled by his young daughter, were called fancy pictures.<ref>Kumiko Tanabe, “Hopkins’s Obsession with Beauty and Fancy: The Influence of the Parnassian Movement and the Fancy Picture of J. E. Millais”, in ”The Interconnections between Victorian Writers, Artists and Places”, ed. Kumiko Tanabe, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2019, {{ISBN|9781527539983}}, pp. 48–66, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SqqwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 p. 55].</ref>
Eighteenth-century fancy pictures were an antecedent of Victorian sentimentalism; [[J. E. Millais]]’ paintings of children, such as his ”My First Sermon” and ”My Second Sermon”, modelled by his young daughter, were called fancy pictures.<ref>Kumiko Tanabe, “Hopkins’s Obsession with Beauty and Fancy: The Influence of the Parnassian Movement and the Fancy Picture of J. E. Millais”, in ”The Interconnections between Victorian Writers, Artists and Places”, ed. Kumiko Tanabe, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2019, {{ISBN|9781527539983}}, pp. 48–66, [https://books.google.com/books?id=SqqwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA55 p. 55].</ref>
