Franois Boucher* (1703-1770)

The Dream of Saint Joseph

Details

Franois Boucher* (1703-1770)
The Dream of Saint Joseph
oil on canvas
28.7/8 x 36.3/8in. (73.5 x 92.5cm.)

Provenance

Anon. Sale, Christie's, London, April 21, 1989, lot 68.

Literature

J.-L. Bordeaux, Franois Le Moyne (1688-1737) and his generation, 1984, p. 31, fig. 367.
A. Laing, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Franois Boucher, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit; and The Grand Palais, Paris, 1986-7, p. 91, fig. 70, (incorrectly described as on the Paris art market).

Lot Essay

The rediscovery of this religious work, executed by the artist circa 1721-4, marks an important stage in our knowledge of the work of Boucher. Identified by Mr. Alastair Laing as one of Boucher's earliest surviving works, it was painted while the artist was working in the studio of his first master, Franois Le Moyne, although the coloring attests to the influence on the young Boucher of the Venetians, notably Sebastiano Ricci and Giovanni Pellegrini. Dr. Jean-Luc Bordeaux (op. cit., p. 85, no. 29, and fig. 25), points out that the angel seems strongly indebted to that of Le Moyne's Adoration of the Shepherds of 1721.