Reclining female nude with her legs out and looking up to the right

A drawing by Boucher with the same composition in trois crayons was recently on the French art market (Artcurial, Paris, 16 June 2020, lot 50). While no painting by the artist with this figure is known, the reclining nude appears as Danae in two depictions in the Wallace Collection: a painting (inv. P766; J. Ingamells, The Wallace Collection Catalogue of Pictures. Volume 3. French before 1815, London, 1985, p. 90) and a miniature in the manner of Jacques Charlier (inv. M 159; G. Reynolds, Wallace Collection catalogue of Miniatures, London, 1980, no. 73). Alastair Laing has suggested that the present drawing can be ascribed to Boucher’s pupil Pierre-Charles Le Mettay. We are grateful to the scholar for his help in cataloguing this lot.