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拍品專文
A highly typical study for the artist of a woman bathing, this drawing aux trois crayons is preparatory to a famous painting by Boucher representing Diana after the hunt dated 1745 at the Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris, inv. J.10 (fig. 1; see Ananoff, op. cit., 1976, I, no. 279, ill.; and A. Laing in exhib. cat. New York, Detroit, and Paris, op. cit., no. 49, ill.). The canvas was made as an overdoor, part of a set of four that was separated in two pairs at the beginning of the 19th Century. According to Alexandre Ananoff, they were made for the castle known as Les Folies de Chartres, property of Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, who later named himself Philippe Egalité. The Return from the hunt was paired with The pastoral confidences, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. 47.29.17), while Spring (The pastoral make-up) and Autumn (Erigone conquered) are both in the Wallace Collection, London (inv. P445, P447; see Ananoff, op. cit., 1976, I, nos. 280, 281, 282, ill.; and Laing in exhib. cat. New York, Detroit, and Paris, op. cit., no. 50, ill.) The four paintings were engraved by Claude Duflos the Younger in 1751 (P. Jean-Richard, L’Œuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1987, nos. 917-922, ill.). The figure of Diana at the bath had already been used by Boucher a few years earlier in a painting entitled Le fleuve Scamandre, known thanks to the engraving by Nicolas de Larmessin, published in 1743 (Jean-Richard, op. cit., no. 1254, ill.; Laing in exhib. cat. New York, Detroit, and Paris, op. cit.).
After having been in the celebrated collection of Thomas Lawrence, this elegant yet powerfully drawn nude belonged to John Postle Heseltine, a London stockbroker, engraver, and above all a great collector of drawings. His collection, counting no less than six hundred sheets, included eighteen drawings by Boucher, among which the famous Study of Louise O’Murphy (sold Christie’s, New York, 25 January 2007, lot 73), the mistress of Louis XV, related to the painting of the Blonde Odalisque in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. 1166; see Laing in exhib. cat. New York, Detroit, and Paris, op. cit., no. 61, ill.), as well as a Study of a seated nude woman (sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2022, lot 48), related to the figure of Venus emerging from her bath in a painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (inv. 1943.7.2; see R. Rand in French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century, Washington, 2009, no. 3, ill.).
Fig. 1. François Boucher, Diana after the hunt. Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris.
After having been in the celebrated collection of Thomas Lawrence, this elegant yet powerfully drawn nude belonged to John Postle Heseltine, a London stockbroker, engraver, and above all a great collector of drawings. His collection, counting no less than six hundred sheets, included eighteen drawings by Boucher, among which the famous Study of Louise O’Murphy (sold Christie’s, New York, 25 January 2007, lot 73), the mistress of Louis XV, related to the painting of the Blonde Odalisque in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. 1166; see Laing in exhib. cat. New York, Detroit, and Paris, op. cit., no. 61, ill.), as well as a Study of a seated nude woman (sold Christie’s, London, 5 July 2022, lot 48), related to the figure of Venus emerging from her bath in a painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (inv. 1943.7.2; see R. Rand in French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century, Washington, 2009, no. 3, ill.).
Fig. 1. François Boucher, Diana after the hunt. Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris.