1736-1754, AFTER A CARTOON BY FRANÇOIS BOUCHER

Details

*A BEAUVAIS PASTORAL TAPESTRY PANEL
1736-1754, after a cartoon by françois boucher
Depicting 'La Musique' with a man playing a lute before a courting couple reading sheets of music, within a landscape setting with scrolling laurel and acanthus clasp borders, wear to borders
10ft. 2in. x 4ft. 8in. (3m. 10cm. x 1m. 42cm.)

Provenance

Monsieur X sale, 1927, no. 5, illus.
Purchased by Stettiner
Ogden L. Mills, New York, sold Parke-Bernet, New York, 31 March 1938, lot 538, illus. 149

Literature

J. Badin, La Manufacture de tapisseries de Beauvais, Paris 1909, p. 60
G. Hunter, "Beauvais-Boucher Tapestries," Arts and Decoration, March 1919, p. 245
P. Verlet, "Furniture and Objets d'Art," in J. Paul Getty, The Joys of Collecting, New York, 1975, p. 155, illus.
M. Jarry, "A Wealth of Boucher Tapestries in American Museums," Antiques, August 1972, p. 224
E. Standen, "Fêtes Italiennes: Beauvais Tapestries after Boucher in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 12, 1977, pp. 107-130, footnote 20
E. Standen, European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. II, pp. 511-515

Further details

*This lot may be exempt from sales tax, as set forth in the Sales Tax Notice at the front of the catalogue.

Lot Essay

According to Baden (op.cit.), La Musique is one of fourteen subjects from the Fêtes Italiennes series woven at Beauvais from 1736-1754 after designs by François Boucher. It was woven at least eleven times.

This scene is also found at the center of a tapestry dated 1736 in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It combines four scenes from Fêtes l'Italiennes and was made for the Hotel Soubise. The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns another version from the Gatellier family which incorporates several scenes including La Musique at the far right side. According to Standen (op.cit.), these subjects were combined or separated according to the demands of the purchaser.