VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buy… Read more

BOUCHER'S LOVES OF THE GODS The following four lots (lots 161-4) form part of a series of The Loves of the Gods which was designed by François Boucher. The first three panels belong to one set and the fouth panel is from an associated set. THE SERIES The first mention of the series is in a letter from Jean-Baptiste Oudry (d. 1755), the co-director of the Royal Beauvais tapestry workshop with Nicolas Besnier (d. 1754) from 1734 - 1753, to the Swedish superintedant of the Court Harleman, in 1747. 'Le Sr Bouché me fais actuellement des tableaux pour une tenture qui represente les amours des dieux qui sera tres belle; illy a deja deux tableaux de fait.' He wrote to François Boucher (d. 1770) and mentioned two unspecified finished subjects of the series of The Loves of the Gods - which consisted of nine subjects in all and which Boucher must have designed between 1747 and 1751. This, his fourth tapestry series supplied to the workshop, was very successful and woven no less than 34 times between 1747 and 1773, usually consisting of three to nine hangings. Nine sets alone were woven for the Royal collection or at least to function as Royal gifts. The first set was completed in 1750, consisting of eight pieces, for Filippo di Borbone, Infante of Spain, duca di Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, who married a daughter of Louis XV. Interestingly that set appears to be the only one that uses the same borders as the following three lots. Based on the publication of The Rape of Proserpine from the Wildenstein collection N. Forti Grazzini suggested that it may at one time have formed part of the same set as only four other panels from the Borbone set survive (Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, Gli Arazzi, Rome, 1994, p. 512). However, he was not aware that there were also two other panels of the series with identical borders in the Wildenstein collection, one repeating a subject that remains in the Quirinale. It is thus very improbable that the offered lots are from the Borbone set since that set was meant to illustrate one panel of each subject only. (E. Standen, 'The Amours des Dieux: A Series of Beauvais Tapestries After Boucher', Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, 1984 1985; N. Forti Grazzini, Il Patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, Gli Arazzi, Rome, 1994, pp. 512 - 530: C. Bremer-David, French Tapestries & Textiles in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, pp. 120 - 127).

A FRENCH MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY

CIRCA 1750 - 1767, BEAUVAIS, AFTER FRANCOIS BOUCHER

Details

A FRENCH MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY
CIRCA 1750 - 1767, BEAUVAIS, AFTER FRANCOIS BOUCHER
A suite with the following two lots, depicting The Rape of Proserpine from the series The Loves of the Gods, with Proserpine being carried away to the the center on a chariot drawn by horses and with three ladies to the foreground the right, within an open landscape, within a simulated giltwood frame border, inscribed in black ink '176' to the left front corner, lacking outer guard borders, reduced in size with consequential cuts to the borders
10 ft. 7 in. (322 cm.) high; 10 ft. 1 in. (307 cm.) wide

Provenance

William K. Vanderbilt (d. 1920), New York and Newport, Rhode Island and by descent to his daughter
Mrs. Rosemary Gaynor (née Warburton, later Mrs. Hugh Chisolm), New York, until 1948.

Literature

D. Sutton, 'François Boucher', Exhibition Catalogue, New York, 1980, no. 16, p. 39.
M.S. Young, 'Letters from the USA: La Plus Belle Fille du Monde', Apollo, November 1980, no. 225, p. 346, fig. 2.
E. Standen, 'The Amours des Dieux: A Series of Beauvais Tapestries After Boucher', Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, 1984 1985, pp. 70 - 71.
E. Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. II, p. 535.
N. Forti Grazzini, Il Patrimonio artistico del Quirinale, Gli Arazzi, Rome, 1994, p. 512.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

This subject appears to have been woven at least nine times between 1750 and 1770, but only one example is today in a public collection, that in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres. Although the design for the entire composition has disappeared, preparatory drawings, such as the one of the figure to the foreground survive (collection of Dr. Rudolf Koela).

More from THE WILDENSTEIN COLLECTION

View All