An Allegory of Time Unveiling Truth

In his large-scale pictures, De Troy tends to lose vivacity of touch, replacing it by a rather heavy handling which can yet be effective, though it probably accounted partly for the unenthusiastic reception his actual cartoons, for example, had in Paris. His imagination was rather heavy, too. The result could be a curious blend of the prosaic and the painterly, as instanced in the Allegory of Time unveiling Truth. There is something ludicrous about Time's would-be flying figure, suspended so awkwardly and with his legs oddly detached. Altogether, as allegory, the composition remains prosaically earthbound.