Two putti with an open bird-cage and a quiver

This picture derives from L’Amour oiseleur (private collection; A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Lausanne, 1976, I, pp. 196-197, no. 62), a painting that belonged to an allegorical set of the Four Seasons which Boucher painted in the 1730s for one of his early Parisian patrons, the lawyer François Derbais. We are grateful to Alastair Laing for confirming the attribution and for pointing out that the picture was probably laid in by a studio assistant.