Lot Essay
The present picture was inspired by a composition by François Boucher known in several versions, all of them derivations from a lost original, a pastel which was in the collection of Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret. A pastel copy was last recorded in a sale in 1913 (G. Wildenstein, Un Amateur de Boucher et de Fragonard. Jacques-
Onésyme Bergeret (1715-1785), Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LVIII, 1961, p.67, fig.25) and another was sold from the Hermitage at Lepke's, Berlin, 6-7 November 1928, lot 359, illustrated. A circular version on canvas was offered at Sotheby's, Monaco, 13 June 1982, lot 86. The expression of the girl in the present picture relates it more closely to these than to an engraving of the composition by J. F. Poletnich, captioned La Voluptueuse (P. Jean-Richard, Musée du Louvre, Inventaire général des gravures, Ecole française I: L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1978, p.355, no.1476, illustrated). None of the Boucher derivations include the girl's hand, roses being attached to the girls' dresses either to the left or the right. In another variant by Rotari in the hall at Peterhof, neither hand nor flowers are shown and the girl wears a Hungarian hat (Polazzo, op. cit., fig.177)
Onésyme Bergeret (1715-1785), Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LVIII, 1961, p.67, fig.25) and another was sold from the Hermitage at Lepke's, Berlin, 6-7 November 1928, lot 359, illustrated. A circular version on canvas was offered at Sotheby's, Monaco, 13 June 1982, lot 86. The expression of the girl in the present picture relates it more closely to these than to an engraving of the composition by J. F. Poletnich, captioned La Voluptueuse (P. Jean-Richard, Musée du Louvre, Inventaire général des gravures, Ecole française I: L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1978, p.355, no.1476, illustrated). None of the Boucher derivations include the girl's hand, roses being attached to the girls' dresses either to the left or the right. In another variant by Rotari in the hall at Peterhof, neither hand nor flowers are shown and the girl wears a Hungarian hat (Polazzo, op. cit., fig.177)