The Card Sharp on the Boulevard

1806

Louis-Léopold Boilly

Painter, French, 1761 - 1845

Fourteen men, women, and children focus their attention on a man fanning out a deck of cards in a town street in the right half of this horizontal painting. More men and women stand in small groups or walk in the left half. The women wear bonnets and long dresses and cloaks. The men wear jackets, slacks, and hats. The people all have pale or peachy skin. The man holding out the cards wears a plumed, bicorn hat, a thick white scarf around his neck, and a long, dark coat. His long gray hair is looped into a knot on his upper back, and a thick white sideburn curls along the cheek we see. He has a prominent nose, thin mustache, and his lips are parted as he faces our left in profile. Glints of gold on his hat and back of his coat could be bells, and he wears a gold hoop earring. A young woman with smooth skin, a low-cut, very pale green dress and matching bonnet reaches out to take a card. Another wearing a mob cap and cloak stands at her far shoulder, and two children stand between her and the cardsharp. A pair of young boys stand with the cardsharp, facing away from us and looking down at the cards. More men and women in earth-toned clothes, some tattered, gather in a tight cluster around a wooden table beyond this grouping. On the table is a metal cup and some glass balls, perhaps marbles. A small, furry, brown dog sits and looks up and to the right with dark eyes in the bottom right corner of the painting. This group is backed by a high wall, presumably enclosing a private garden. Trees reach into the cloud-streaked blue sky beyond the wall. Two more dogs walk among the townspeople who move along the street to the left. Building facades on the far side of the walkway are in shadow, but one is labeled Patissier. The artist signed and dated the painting near the lower left corner, “L. Boilly 1806.”

Media Options

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Raised near Lille in northern France, Boilly trained with his father before moving in 1778 to Arras, where he studied with the trompe l'oeil painter Dominique Doncre. In 1785 Boilly settled in Paris and painted trompe l'oeil subjects, small portraits, and scenes of erotic gallantry. With the Revolution and the disbanding of the old royal academy, exclusive privilege to show at the Salon was no longer accorded just to academicians; in 1791 any artist could exhibit. And from that year onward, Boilly exhibited regularly at the Salon: in 1808 he showed Cardsharp on the Boulevard along with a pendant Young Savoyards Showing Their Marmot (private collection, Paris). These paintings mark an important moment in his career, as they were among his first depictions of everyday Parisian street life. Democratic or even populist in subject, they were designed especially to appeal to the wide public that attended the annual Salon exhibitions.

The boulevards of Paris--broad avenues lined with trees--had been a distinctive feature of the city since the eighteenth century, attracting crowds of strollers from all social classes, vendors of all kinds, street entertainers, and purveyors of various licit and illicit pleasures. Cardsharp on the Boulevard shows several episodes on the boulevard du Temple, where, to the right, the scene is dominated by a cardsharp or conjurer, offering cards to a group of attractive young women and children. Various types look on, including the artist himself, the glum, skeptical figure portrayed in a bicorne hat at the center of the group. To the far right a trestle table displays a cup, balls, and dice, the articles of various other tricks. In the left background another crowd makes its way into the premises of a café and patisserie, while in the left foreground a young woman is engaged in the oldest profession. The companion picture shows other popular street entertainments, including young lads from Savoy displaying their pet marmot and playing the hurdy-gurdy. Contemporary critics--and Salon visitors--appreciated Boilly's very fine technique and his ability to capture so many details of costume, custom, and character, which he skillfully worked into a coherent narrative whole. Cardsharp on the Boulevard was designed to appeal to a wide audience, and this delightful slice of Parisian life in the early years of the Empire is no less engaging today than it was in Boilly's time.

(Text by Philip Conisbee, published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on wood

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Victoria and Roger Sant

  • Dimensions

    overall: 24 x 33 cm (9 7/16 x 13 in.)
    framed: 40.3 x 48.3 x 5.1 cm (15 7/8 x 19 x 2 in.)

  • Accession

    2000.5.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Marie-Caroline-Ferdinande-Louise de Naples, duchesse de Berry [1798-1870];[1] (her sale, Bellavoine and Margny, Paris, 28 January 1848, no. 80, as Le diseur de bonne aventure). Forestier; (estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11-15 December 1871, no. 6). Duc de Persigny, Château de Charamande; (his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15 March 1876, no. 4, as Une scène de boulevard); purchased by Gillet. (Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 13-14 December 1943, no. 68, as Scenes des boulevards). (Sale, Sotheby's Monaco, 23 February 1986, no. 310, as Scène de Boulevard). (Sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 27 January 2000, no. 67); purchased 11 February 2000 through (Agnew's Inc., London) by NGA.
[1] The Duchesse's coat of arms, with inventory no. 23, are on the reverse of the panel.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1808

  • Salon, Paris, 1808, no. 55.

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2003

  • The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Altes Museum, Berlin, 2003-2004, no. 112, repro., and brochure no. 12, repro.

2011

  • Boilly (1761-1845), Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, 2011-2012, no. 129, repro., as Scènes de boulevard.

Bibliography

1898

  • Harisse, Henry. L.-L. Boilly, sa vie et son oeuvre. Paris, 1898: no. 33.

1913

  • Marmottan, Paul. Louis-Léopold Boilly. Paris, 1913: 117, 226.

1931

  • Mabille de Poncheville. Boilly. Paris, 1931: 123.

2000

  • Vogel, Carol. "A Thriving Market for Old Masters." New York Times (January 31, 2000): E3.

Inscriptions

lower left: L.Boilly.1806.

Wikidata ID

Q20182052


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