Franois Boucher (Paris 1703-1770)

This picture was commissioned from Franois Boucher as a pendant to Carle Van Loo's Mars and Venus recently acquired by the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston (see R. Temperini, French Painting of the Ancien Rgime from the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Hong Kong, 1996, pp. 149-151).

In the 1776 sale catalogue, Boucher's picture was described as 'un des tableaux les plus beaux de ce matre' and in 1784 the pair was described as: 'ces deux tableaux ont toujours joui d'une rputation mrite'. Boucher's picture was engraved by Surugue in 1742 and van Loo's by Ravenet at an unknown date. The pair was engraved by Le Vasseur for the Salon of 1775.

Alastair Laing (op. cit., p. 103) has linked the present picture to a group probably executed by Boucher before his departure to Italy in 1728 which comprised the Birth of Adonis and the Death of Adonis, almost identical in size and close in treatment to the present picture, (op. cit., 1986-7, p. 17). The pictures, engraved in 1733, are now in a private collection. Dandr-Bardon, in his speech Life of Carle van Loo, read before the Acadmie in 1765, records van Loo's pendant to the present picture as being painted in 1726 although Fontaine-Malherbe in his Eloge de Monsieur Carle van Loo of 1767 dates it to 1735.

It is not surprising to see Boucher and van Loo, two years his senior, working on the same commission as both artists were close companions in their youth. In 1728, they went together to Rome to study at the Acadmie de France and their early works have often been confused. The director of the Acadmie, Nicolas Vleughels, considered them among his most promising students. Carle van Loo was appointed premier peintre du Roi in 1760 but after his death in 1765, it was Boucher who replaced him in this role.

The present picture was copied by Saint-Aubin in his sale catalogue of 1773.

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.