François Boucher

Laid down on the backing of a mount. Overall in very good condition. There are a few scattered fox marks throughout the sheet. There is a paper crease running across the upper half of the sheet just above the parasol that the little girl is holding. There are also a few creases at the left and right margins of the sheet and there is a small repaired tear at the upper left margin. There are a few stains from glue where the sheet has been laid down, mainly concentrated at the left margin. The medium remains fresh and the overall image very strong. Sold in a wooden, gilded, 18th century French frame.
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Alastair Laing has kindly pointed out that this composition was engraved, in reverse, by Huquier (the print is reproduced in reverse in phototype as pl. 29 in a compilation La Peinture Décorative au xviiie siècle, published in 1912 by A. Guérinet) (fig. 1). The drawing, though trimmed slightly at the top and the bottom, is roughly the same size as the print and it is reddened for transfer on the verso. As Huquier signed the plate stating the invention to be his own: Huquier in. et ex. CPR and Aveline jun. Sculpt, Alastair Laing proposes that Boucher made the preliminary drawing, establishing the setting, and working up the figures, but then left Huquier to complete the decorative elements.

 Françoise Joulie, however, believes this large and beautiful sheet to be a typical example of a 'Dessin fini', a term used by Boucher when referring to his own finished drawings made in preparation for an engraving.   Mme. Joulie first studied the drawing in the late 1980s and has recently seen it again in the original; she believes that it is completely from the hand of Boucher.  She has recently presented it in a paper on the way Boucher and his engravers worked together and believes that, as he was very concerned with the results, he would not have not relied on them to finish drawings which he had made.  She pointed out that Boucher's name does not in fact always appear on the engravings after his designs. She admires the elegance of the figures, with their long wrists and decorative feet, and finds them characteristic of Boucher's style of 1735-38, the moment when he began to treat Chinese subjects.  She believes the signature on the right is genuine and accords with that on other works of circa 1735.  She observes that the trees and flowers, and also the fountains, are related to the works of northern artists who inspired Boucher in this brief period around 1735 and that the decorative arabesques at the front are very typical of his style as seen again in his slightly later painting, Le Chinois galant.   Françoise Joulie, who has discovered much interesting new information on this subject, will be publishing this sheet in her forthcoming article on Boucher and his engravers, "Boucher et ses graveurs" in the Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de l'Art Français.

The known drawings by Huquier, as would be expected from a printmaker, are carefully drawn and lacking in the bold confidence and vibrancy of this example of Boucher’s hand. It is also interesting to compare the graphic style of our sheet with another study by Boucher, L'Audience du mandarin, executed in black and grey wash. The drawing, which is in the Musèe des Arts dècoratifs, Paris, is one of the first Chinoiserie studies executed by the artist, in around 1735.¹  The figure of the mandarin in the center of the composition is taken from Huquier's engraving after Watteau's La Divinité chinoise. The Paris study, although much less finished than the present one, shows a similar handling both in the lively underdrawing and in the strong, vibrant black chalk touches used throughout to define certain details.  To satisfy a vogue for the exotic and a growing fashion in all decorative arts, Boucher produced many drawings of Chinese subjects which were engraved by Aveline, Huquier pére et fils, and Ingram.²  Some of those drawings, in red or black chalk, have survived and can be compared with the present example, although they are rarely this large.³  The most important commission Boucher received for works in this manner was for a series of tapestries to be produced at the Beauvais factory.  The surviving preparatory oil sketches, eight of which he exhibited at the Salon of 1742, are now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon.⁴  Although Boucher did produce works with Chinese subjects in the 1730s, it would appear that most of his works of this type date from the early 1740s. 

 

 

1.  Inv.no.11886
2.  See P. Jean-Richard, L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher, Paris 1978
3.  For example, J. Bean, 15th-18th Century French Drawings, New York 1986, p. 35 no. 26, reproduced
4.  A. Ananoff, Boucher, Paris 1976, vol. I, p. 338ff.