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Lot Essay
Although Boucher showed enormous talent as a painter from the start of his career, he supported himself when he was in his early twenties by making designs to be engraved as thesis plates in the shop of the printmaker Jean-Franois Cars. The elder Cars 'gave him lodging, board and 60 livres a month, which Boucher estimated at that time to be a fortune', Mariette tells us in his life of the artist. Although Boucher would continue to design the occasional book or thesis plate even after he had achieved success as a painter, most of these designs were made before he left for Rome in 1728.
The present painting was certainly made as a model for an engraving, as Alastair Laing has noted: not only was it executed in monochrome, but the allegorical figure of History (holding a book, lower left) is shown with a pen in her left hand, indicating that Boucher planned for the image to be reversed in the printing process. The medallion in the center of the composition was left open to receive a portrait image of the dedicatee of the thesis. However, this is not the painting exhibited in the Salon of 1747, as has been claimed. That painting - 'no. 34 Un tableau esquisse en grisaille, reprsentant un sujet allgorique d'une these ddi Monseigneur le Dauphin' - is lost, but was engraved by Laurent Cars (son of Jean-Franois, Boucher's one-time employer). The print, which is dedicated to the Dauphin, includes some of the same personifications found in the present painting but was substantially different in composition (see M. Roux, Inventaire du Fonds Franais: XVIII Sicle, 1934, III, p. 491, no. 117).
The terminus ante quem for the Richardson painting is provided by another engraving, Gabriel Huquier's twelfth plate for the series Livres de Cartouches, published in December 1742 (fig. 1). Huquier's print is not absolutely identical to the Richardson Cartouche, as Laing observes, but it is so close that it might be considered a reworking of an earlier engraving (now lost) of Boucher's picture, that would have been made in Jean-Franois Cars' shop in the 1720s. Certainly the style of the painting dates from early in Boucher's career, and Colin Bailey believes that the picture may have been executed shortly before the artist's departure for Rome, probably while he was still working for Cars. Boucher is said to have produced the ambitious and refined history painting, The Judgment of Susannah (recently acquired by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) when he was only seventeen years old, so it is perfectly likely that this elegant allegory, with its suave handling and baroque design - so reminiscent of the style of Boucher's teacher, Lemoyne - issued from his hand only six or seven years later.
We are grateful to Alastair Laing and Colin B. Bailey for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.
The present painting was certainly made as a model for an engraving, as Alastair Laing has noted: not only was it executed in monochrome, but the allegorical figure of History (holding a book, lower left) is shown with a pen in her left hand, indicating that Boucher planned for the image to be reversed in the printing process. The medallion in the center of the composition was left open to receive a portrait image of the dedicatee of the thesis. However, this is not the painting exhibited in the Salon of 1747, as has been claimed. That painting - 'no. 34 Un tableau esquisse en grisaille, reprsentant un sujet allgorique d'une these ddi Monseigneur le Dauphin' - is lost, but was engraved by Laurent Cars (son of Jean-Franois, Boucher's one-time employer). The print, which is dedicated to the Dauphin, includes some of the same personifications found in the present painting but was substantially different in composition (see M. Roux, Inventaire du Fonds Franais: XVIII Sicle, 1934, III, p. 491, no. 117).
The terminus ante quem for the Richardson painting is provided by another engraving, Gabriel Huquier's twelfth plate for the series Livres de Cartouches, published in December 1742 (fig. 1). Huquier's print is not absolutely identical to the Richardson Cartouche, as Laing observes, but it is so close that it might be considered a reworking of an earlier engraving (now lost) of Boucher's picture, that would have been made in Jean-Franois Cars' shop in the 1720s. Certainly the style of the painting dates from early in Boucher's career, and Colin Bailey believes that the picture may have been executed shortly before the artist's departure for Rome, probably while he was still working for Cars. Boucher is said to have produced the ambitious and refined history painting, The Judgment of Susannah (recently acquired by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa) when he was only seventeen years old, so it is perfectly likely that this elegant allegory, with its suave handling and baroque design - so reminiscent of the style of Boucher's teacher, Lemoyne - issued from his hand only six or seven years later.
We are grateful to Alastair Laing and Colin B. Bailey for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.