FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770)
FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770)
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Property of a FamilyProfessor Michael Jaffé C.B.E., Litt.D., F.R.S.A (1923-1997), Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge from 1973-1990, is perhaps best remembered for his tireless efforts to rescue works of art which were at risk of export, most notably Anthony Van Dyck’s Virgin and Child, George Stubb’s Gimcrack, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Place Clichy.Following lots from the same collection: 2, 100, 101, 102, 103 and 104.
FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770)

Putti in clouds, supporting a cartouche containing the initials ‘AN’

Details
FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770)
Putti in clouds, supporting a cartouche containing the initials ‘AN’
black chalk, stumping, corrections in white bodycolour
42.7 x 55.8 cm (163/4 x 22 in.)
Provenance
Professor Michael Jaffé (1923-1997); by descent to the present owners.
Literature
A. Laing, in P. Fuhring, Design into Art. Drawings for Architecture and Ornament. The Lodewijk Houthakker Collection, London, 1989, p. 118, fig. 12.

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Lot Essay

This drawing illustrates François Boucher’s activity as an inventor of decorative models, creating cartouches, frames, fountains, vases, screens, designs for the theatre, etc. Many of his designs were published in print, notably by Gabriel Huquier. Boucher was close to the silversmith Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, who published his Livre d’ornemens with Huquier in 1734, containing decorative motifs very similar to the present drawing (see P. Fuhring in Emmanuelle Brugerolles, ed., Boucher, Watteau and the Origin of the Rococo. An Exhibition of 18th Century Drawings from the Collection of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, 2003-2006, pp. 246-257). The general oval shape of the coat of arms and the crown with fleur-de-lys can be found in an engraving by Huquier entitled Developement de bordures pour une chasse du Roy, based on an original drawing by Meissonnier (P. Fuhring, Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier. Un Génie du rococo, 1695-1750, Turin and London, 1999, II, p. 335, no. 42, ill.).

Alastair Laing compares the sheet under discussion with two other designs of cartouches for a coat of arms surmounted by a fleur-de-lys wreath and supported by putti: one in 1976 with Agnews, London, the other in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, inv. PD. 52-1961 (Laing in Fuhring, op. cit., 1993, pp. 116-117, no. 65, fig. 11).

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