François Boucher (Paris 1703-1770)

Saint John the Baptist, half-length, in profile facing to the right

Details

François Boucher (Paris 1703-1770)
Saint John the Baptist, half-length, in profile facing to the right
red and white chalk on buff paper, oval
6 3/8 x 5 3/8 in. (16.2 x 13.8 cm.)

Provenance

Sir Bruce Ingram.
H.W. Mapleton-Bree, London.
with Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New York, where acquired in 1967 by David Daniels, New York; Sotheby's, London, 25 April 1978, lot 65.

Literature

A. Ananoff and D. Wildenstein, François Boucher, Fribourg, 1976, I, pp. 220-1, no. 86/2, fig. 369.
R. Slatkin, 'François Boucher: St. John the Baptist: A Study in Religious Imagery', The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin, 1976, p. 17 and fig. 26.

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Lot Essay

Ananoff related this drawing to an early painting by Boucher, the Venus and Adonis of 1733 now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy (Ananoff and Wildenstein, op. cit., I, no. 86). The figure in the painting faces left, while the one in the drawing faces right. But as Regina Slatkin (op. cit.) has shown, the subject of the drawing is more likely Saint John the Baptist although no known composition can be connected with it.
Alastair Laing, whom we thank for his kind help in cataloguing this lot, has suggested it was actually sketched from an Italian painting. The oval, into which it seems to have been drawn rather than cut to fit, might support such an idea.

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