Aurora

c. 1733

François Boucher

Artist, French, 1703 - 1770

Sketched with red and white chalk on tan-colored paper, a nude woman sits looking down to our right in this vertical drawing. The woman’s body is angled to our right, and she has a round face with a small nose, bow-shaped mouth, and slight double chin. A few lines suggest her hair is swept up and back from her forehead. She leans onto her left elbow, to our right and farther from us, which appears to rest on a bank of clouds. She reaches forward with her other hand to hold some drapery. She has soft, rounded arms, tummy, and thighs, and her ankles are crossed. The artist signed the lower left corner, “f. boucher.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    red and white chalk on brown laid paper, with later framing line in brown ink

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Gertrude Laughlin Chanler

  • Dimensions

    overall: 37.5 x 23.5 cm (14 3/4 x 9 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    2000.9.3

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Peter Jones, Chester; Mr. Green; Basil Lewis Dighton [d. 1930], London; The Hon. Irwin Boyle Laughlin, Washington, D.C., 1918; his wife, Therese Iselin Laughlin, Washington, D.C., 1941; their daughter, Gertrude Laughlin Chanler, New York, 1958; gift to NGA, 2000.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1973

  • François Boucher in North American Collections: 100 Drawings, NGA, Washington, D.C., and The Art Institute of Chicago, 1973-1974, no. 20 (Regina Shoolman Slatkin).

1982

  • Eighteenth Century Drawings from the Collection of Mrs. Gertrude Laughlin Chanler, NGA, Washington, D.C., 1982, no. 1.

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000-2001, 180-181 (entry by Margaret Morgan Grasselli).

  • Drawings and Prints from the Permanent Collection (Summer 2000), National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000 (no catalogue).

2009

  • Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 118-119, 282, 2009, no. 50 (color).

Bibliography

1950

  • Schoolman, Regina, and Charles E. Slatkin. Six Centuries of French Master Drawings in America. New York, 1950: no. 34.

1962

  • Agnes Mongan. Great Drawings of All Time. Vol. 3: French, Thirteenth Century to 1919. Edited by Ira Moskowitz. New York, 1962: no. 694.

1964

  • Valléry-Radot, Jean. French Drawings, Fifteenth Century through Géricault. New York, 1964: pl. 58.

1967

  • Schneider, Pierre. The World of Watteau. New York, 1967: 135, repro.

1974

  • Williams, Eunice. Review of François Boucher in North American Collections, _Master Drawings_12, no. 2 (Summer 1974): 173.

1976

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. François Boucher. 2 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1976: 1:221, no. 86 (1), fig. 368.

1986

  • Jacoby, Beverly Schreiber. François Boucher's Early Development as a Draughtsman, 1720-1734. New York, 1986: 12, 265, III.A.1 (reprod.) (Garland Press publication of Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1982).

  • Laing, Alastair. François Boucher, 1703-1770. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Grand Palais, Paris, 1986-1987. New York, 1986: 136, 138, under no. 18.

1991

  • Bailey, Colin B. The Loves of the Gods, Mythological Painting from Watteau to David. Exh. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1991-1992: 385-386, under nos. 43 and 44, 389, fig. 2.

2000

  • Grasselli, Margaret Morgan. "Gifts and Acquisitions: François Boucher Aurora." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 24 (2000): 6.

2003

  • Laing, Alastair. The Drawings of François Boucher. Exh. cat. Frick Collection, New York, and Kimbell Art Museum. New York, 2003: 17 (fig. 17), 28.

Inscriptions

in black chalk at lower left: f. boucher; in brown ink on the old mount at upper left: 1; and at lower right: 114

Wikidata ID

Q64569754

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