A boy upsetting a little girl

Details

François Boucher (Paris 1703-1770)
A boy upsetting a little girl
signed 'F. Boucher'
black and white chalk on blue (discolored) paper, brown ink framing lines
10 7/8 x 7 7/8 in. (27.6 x 20 cm.)

Provenance

J.-B. Glomy (L. 1085).
George Blumenthal, by 1930; Sotheby's, London, 26 November 1970, lot 79 (bt. Slatkin).

Literature

S. Rubenstein-Bloch, Catalogue of the collection of George and Florence Blumenthal, Paris, 1930, V, pl. XXV.

Exhibited

Montreal, The Montreal Museun of Fine Arts, From Boucher to Vuillard: French master drawings from the collection of Mrs. Marjorie Bronfman, 2000.
New York, Stair Sainty Matthiesen, François Boucher: His circle and influences, 1987, no. 38.

Brought to you by

Jennifer Wright

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Lot Essay

Children at play was a favorite subject of Boucher's, and the present lot is a variation on the theme of a young boy and girl at play in a pastoral setting. This composition combines the figures of a girl and a boy seen in two red chalk drawings by Boucher (François Boucher: His circle and influences, op. cit., pp. 60-61, nos. 36-37). This highly finished drawing was meant to be an independent work of art, unlike the red chalk versions which were the basis for prints by Gilles Demarteau (1722-1776) (P. Jean-Richard, L'oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la collection Edmond de Rothschild, Paris, 1978, nos. 702-3), and are related to Gobelins tapestry cartoons. The present sheet is laid down on a mount made by Boucher's contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Glomy (1711-1786) who was also framemaker to Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI. Glomy's mount also indicates that this was an independent drawing for the marketplace.
Alastair Laing dates this drawing to the 1760s (written correspondence 5 December 2014).

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