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Lot Essay
This rediscovered bodycolor is one of the only two works in the medium by Boucher known to have survived. The other is Les oies de Frère Philippe, a small composition on tafeta now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon (A. Laing, op. cit., no. 7). Mr Laing notes that, in addition to the present drawing which was thought lost at the time of the exhibition, only three other bodycolours by Boucher were known in the 18th Century: an écran with La belle Bouquetière in Huquier's collection (described in his posthumous sale as 'drawn in pen and painted in gouache'; Paris, 9 November ff. 1772, lot 7) and a pair of gouaches, like the present drawing oval, representing Painting and Sculpture, in Begeret's collection (his posthumous sale; Paris, 24 April ff. 1786, lot 114; A. Laing, op. cit. p. 107).
This composition was also treated by Boucher in a painting dated 1743, exhibited in the Salon of the same year and formerly in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild at Halton Manor (A. Ananoff, op. cit., 1976, no. 243). The painting is also oval but differs from the present bodycolor principally in the arrangement of the putti, the poses of the nymphs and the direction of Venus' gaze. The present bodycolor may have been made at about the same time, but only put forward for exhibition in 1745. The composition of the bodycolor seems to have been the more successful as it was this arrangement that was chosen by Jean Daullé for his engraving exhibited at the Salon of 1750.
It is revealing given the scale and brilliance of the present drawing that the first recorded owner was Boucher's friend the miniaturist Nicolas Vennevault, mistakenly recorded by the writer of the Mercure de France notice as Venerod. Vennevault was Adjoint à Professeur at the Academie de Saint Luc. At the Salon of that Academy in 1751 he exhibited Un portrait de M. Boucher, Peintre du Roy, Professeur de son Academie as no. 23. It is tempting to speculate that the two friends offered the works to one another as an exchange. The drawing appears in Vennevault's posthumous sale in 1776, and then in the sale of the collection of the marchand-amateur François Basan in 1798 from where it entered a private collection. Save for publication as a line engraving by Réveil in 1836 the drawing then disappeared from view.
Alastair Laing has kindly confirmed the attribution to Boucher on studying the work in the original.
This composition was also treated by Boucher in a painting dated 1743, exhibited in the Salon of the same year and formerly in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild at Halton Manor (A. Ananoff, op. cit., 1976, no. 243). The painting is also oval but differs from the present bodycolor principally in the arrangement of the putti, the poses of the nymphs and the direction of Venus' gaze. The present bodycolor may have been made at about the same time, but only put forward for exhibition in 1745. The composition of the bodycolor seems to have been the more successful as it was this arrangement that was chosen by Jean Daullé for his engraving exhibited at the Salon of 1750.
It is revealing given the scale and brilliance of the present drawing that the first recorded owner was Boucher's friend the miniaturist Nicolas Vennevault, mistakenly recorded by the writer of the Mercure de France notice as Venerod. Vennevault was Adjoint à Professeur at the Academie de Saint Luc. At the Salon of that Academy in 1751 he exhibited Un portrait de M. Boucher, Peintre du Roy, Professeur de son Academie as no. 23. It is tempting to speculate that the two friends offered the works to one another as an exchange. The drawing appears in Vennevault's posthumous sale in 1776, and then in the sale of the collection of the marchand-amateur François Basan in 1798 from where it entered a private collection. Save for publication as a line engraving by Réveil in 1836 the drawing then disappeared from view.
Alastair Laing has kindly confirmed the attribution to Boucher on studying the work in the original.