Le retour de l'infidèle; and Le concert improvisé

Details

Louis-Léopold Boilly (La Bassée 1761-1845 Paris)
Le retour de l'infidèle; and Le concert improvisé
the versi with descriptions of the subjects by Alexandre de Tulle, Marquis de Villefranche
black lead, pen and grey ink (1), grey wash, watermark Strasburg Lily (cut, 2)
6 x 7½ in. (153 x 189 mm.)(a pair) (2)

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Piasa, Paris, 31 January 2000, lot 106.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

These two drawings are related in reverse to pictures respectively in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and in the Hôtel Sandelin in Saint-Omer, France (A. Scottez-De Wambrechies, Boilly, exhib. cat., Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1988, no. 3), dateable to circa 1790. The pictures were originally commissioned by Alexandre de Tulle, Marquis de Villefranche at the request of Antoine Calvet de Lapalun. The drawings were the first ideas which Boilly sent to Tulle. He in turn forwarded the sheets with comments and suggested changes to Calvet. Calvet, like Tulle, was an early patron of Boilly and between 1789 and 1792 ordered eleven pictures from him. Calvet was a lawyer and a client of his.The two drawings will are to be included in the catalogue raisonné in preparation by Etienne Breton and Pascal Zuber.

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