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Lot Essay
When this beautiful painting was sold in 1785 from the collection of Auguste-Gabriel Godefroy - the controller-general of the French navy, who as a child had been the subject of one of Chardin's most famous portraits (the Louvre, Paris) - it was aptly described as 'a landscape in the style of Salvator Rosa...'. If all of Boucher's landscapes are essentially reminiscences of Italy, this early painting is specifically inspired by memories of Italian paintings - in particular, the heroic landscape paintings of the 17th-century masters of the genre, Claude, Poussin, and Rosa - that he would have had an opportunity to study on his recently completed trip to Rome.
So effortlessly does Boucher's brush imitate the style of the Neapolitan master, that Ananoff (op. cit., 1976) expressed doubts that Boucher had painted the landscape at all, believing instead that he was responsible only for the figures and animals. Marandel firmly discounted the suggestion that the painting might be the product of Boucher's collaboration with an unknown artist (op. cit.), and the only surviving piece of 18th-century evidence - the 1785 Godefroy sale catalogue, which ascribes the picture to Boucher alone - supports his view.
While it is beyond doubt that the foreground with its cattle and shepherds is from Boucher's hand - and the artist's superb red chalk study of the sleeping boy (fig. 1) also serves to confirm the painting's dating to the early 1730s - it must be admitted that the classicizing background does not easily accord with Boucher's characteristic style. It is difficult, of course, to assess the degree to which Boucher could suppress his own manner when consciously imitating the style of another master, as we know he was attempting in this picture. Like Alastair Laing, we will avoid taking a dogmatic position on an issue which seems to allow for no certain conclusion, but will content ourselves to observe that if the painting was produced by Boucher in collaboration with another artist, the fact was forgotten only fifteen years after his death.
In a Rgence carved giltwood frame, with scallop shell corners and centers flanked by pierced scrolling acanthus leaves and trailing foliage and flowers.
We are grateful to Alastair Laing for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
So effortlessly does Boucher's brush imitate the style of the Neapolitan master, that Ananoff (op. cit., 1976) expressed doubts that Boucher had painted the landscape at all, believing instead that he was responsible only for the figures and animals. Marandel firmly discounted the suggestion that the painting might be the product of Boucher's collaboration with an unknown artist (op. cit.), and the only surviving piece of 18th-century evidence - the 1785 Godefroy sale catalogue, which ascribes the picture to Boucher alone - supports his view.
While it is beyond doubt that the foreground with its cattle and shepherds is from Boucher's hand - and the artist's superb red chalk study of the sleeping boy (fig. 1) also serves to confirm the painting's dating to the early 1730s - it must be admitted that the classicizing background does not easily accord with Boucher's characteristic style. It is difficult, of course, to assess the degree to which Boucher could suppress his own manner when consciously imitating the style of another master, as we know he was attempting in this picture. Like Alastair Laing, we will avoid taking a dogmatic position on an issue which seems to allow for no certain conclusion, but will content ourselves to observe that if the painting was produced by Boucher in collaboration with another artist, the fact was forgotten only fifteen years after his death.
In a Rgence carved giltwood frame, with scallop shell corners and centers flanked by pierced scrolling acanthus leaves and trailing foliage and flowers.
We are grateful to Alastair Laing for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.