A reclining female on a bed

Pastels are relatively numerous in the graphic works of François Boucher, and often portray highly sensual nude women. The strokes of colored pastel are discreet, while the ‘three chalks’ (red, black and white) dominate, with widely used white highlights rendering the effects of light. The position of this sleeping woman is reminiscent of the languid Venus, in the painting, Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan, whose counterpart is dated 1754. The painting and its counterpart are at the Wallace collection in London (inv. P. 430; A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Lausanne-Paris, 1976, no. P438, fig. 1236). The figure of Venus was prepared for by a drawing, also in pastel, with a naked young woman, also on draped cloth (location unknown; op. cit., no. 430/3, fig. 1229). The composition is very close to several prints, for example, one en manière de crayon by Gilles Demarteau after a drawing in the Cabinet of Mrs d'Azaincourt (P. Jean-Richard, L'Œuvre gravé de François Boucher dans les collections Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1978, no. 714).

We are grateful to Mr. Alastair Laing for confirming the attribution to François Boucher on the basis of a digital photograph.