Madame Bergeret

possibly 1766

François Boucher

Painter, French, 1703 - 1770

A young woman with light skin stands in a garden, wearing a voluminous, full-length, silvery, shimmering gown in this vertical portrait painting. Her body faces us, as she looks into the distance to our left. She has rosy cheeks, gray-green eyes under gently arched, light brown brows, and her coral-pink, thin, closed lips curve in a slight smile. Her ash-brown hair is pulled back and adorned with tiny shell-pink and azure-blue flowers along the left side top of head, to our right. A pleated lace ruffle encircles her smooth neck. Her gown is parchment white where the light glints off the stiff fabric and is silvery gray in the shadows, creating a silk-like sheen. The dress is cut low across the chest, fits tightly around her narrow waist, and has puffy sleeves tied at the elbows with topaz-blue bows. Another blue bow is tied at her chest, and the ends wrap around her back along her waist. A corsage at her left shoulder, to our right, is a profusion of white flowers around a pale pink rose. In her other hand, to our left, she holds a straw hat with a shallow crown and a wide brim, trimmed with sky-blue ribbon. The arm holding the hat is nearly engulfed in the deep folds of her full skirt. She holds a pink rose in her other hand, which rests on the lip of a shiny, copper-colored urn filled with pink flowers and delicate green leaves. On that wrist she wears a bracelet with four strands of white pearls holding a cameo. She stands on a pale, dirt ground. A teal-blue bench in the lower left corner of the painting is tucked into sage-green shrubbery. Sprigs of pink roses are strewn across the seat and on the ground. The woman is framed to either side with olive and celery-green trees and vegetation, which blend into the hazy distance beyond her head.

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 55

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 143.5 x 105.4 cm (56 1/2 x 41 1/2 in.)
    framed: 172.4 x 134.3 cm (67 7/8 x 52 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.7.3

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries: Madame Bergeret, possibly 1766

A young woman draws on an oval surface with white chalk while three winged, baby-like putti gather nearby, all on a bank of pale pink clouds in this horizontal painting. The woman and putti have pale, rosy skin, flushed cheeks, and hazel-brown eyes. To our left, the woman reclines with her upper body propped up on her far elbow, which rests on a steel-blue cushion as her legs stretch out to our right. Her light brown hair is braided and wrapped across the top of her head. She wears a loose, seafoam-green robe over a billowing ivory-white garment that has slipped off the shoulder closer to us. A round paint palette with brushes sticking out of its thumb hole and a roll of blue and white paper sit in the lower left corner, behind the woman. The woman and the objects are on a red cloth. In front of the woman is a rounded surface, perhaps a canvas, on which she draws. She holds up a gold-colored stylus with her right hand, closer to us, with a pointed piece of white chalk in one end and black chalk in the other. The canvas is taller than her head, so the child-like putto she draws on it is life-sized. The three nude putti on the far side of the canvas have copper or golden-blond, curly hair, flushed, rounded cheeks, short wings in white or peacock blue, pudgy torsos, and dimpled limbs. One putto, presumably the one the woman draws, sits back on the bank of clouds with a carnation-pink sash across his chest. He pulls his chin back and looks at her from under his eyebrows. He holds a gold-colored torch with a pink flame in one hand, and the other hand rests near a cylindrical quiver of arrows. Another putto peeks around the side of the canvas, and the third stands and props the canvas up. That third putto holds up a wreath of laurel leaves up over the canvas, above the woman’s drawing hand. The bank of clouds is parchment-brown with muted pink and blue highlights against a vivid blue sky. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “F Boucher – 1765.”

Scholarly Series:  French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt [1715-1785], husband of the sitter, Paris; by inheritance to their elder son, Pierre Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt [1742-1807], Cassan; by inheritance to his stepson (the son of his second wife, Catherine Julie Xavier Poisson de la Chabeaussière, by her first marriage), Ange Philibert de la Girennerie, Cassan; by inheritance to his aunt (a sister of his mother), Barbe Françoise Victoire Poisson de la Chabeaussière Cotillon de Torcy; by inheritance to her daughter, Françoise Julie Cotillon de Torcy Le Bos de Sainte Croix; by inheritance to her daughter, Angélique Le Bos de Sainte Croix, comtesse Fontaine de Resbecq; by inheritance to the Resbecq family; sold by 1920 to (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] For further clarification, see the discussion by Alastair Laing in François Boucher (1703-1770), exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; New York, 1986: 229-233. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1313.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 768.

1973

  • François Boucher in North American Collections: One Hundred Drawings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago, 1973-1974, unnumbered brochure for Washington venue (shown only in Washington).

1982

  • François Boucher, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Kumamoto Prefectual Museum of Art, 1982, no. 41, color repro.

1986

  • François Boucher: 1703-1770, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1986-1987, no. 52, repro., as Portrait of Mme Bergeret (?).

Bibliography

1942

  • Wildenstein, George. François Boucher (1703-1770): Portrait of Mme. Bergeret. New York, [1942]: 1-4.

1944

  • "Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5.

  • "The Almanac: French Paintings Given to the National Gallery." The Magazine Antiques 46, no. 5 (November 1944): 288, repro.

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 116, color repro.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 78, color repro. no. 81.

  • "One of the Greatest Donations of XVIIIth Century French Painting Ever Received by a Museum-The Kress Collection." The Illustrated London News 115, no. 2992 (26 August 1944): 249, repro.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 164, repro.

1948

  • Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4.

1956

  • Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth Century Pictures in Washington." _Gazette des Beaux Arts_6th ser., 47, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 227-228, repro. 225.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 34, pl. 95.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 363, repro.

1960

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 6.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings and Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 185, color repro. no. 176.

  • Wildenstein, Georges. "Un amateur de Boucher et de Fragonard: Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret (1715-1785)." Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 6th ser., 58, no. 1110-1111 (July-August 1961): 40, 43, 46, 54, repro. 42.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 317, repro.

1965

  • Cooke, H. Lester. Galeria Nacional de Washington. Translated by Maria Teresa de la Cruz. Madrid, 1965: 298, color repro. 71.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 18.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:312, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 10, repro.

1971

  • Slatkin, Regina Shoolman. "Portraits of François Boucher." Apollo 94, n.s. no. 116 (October 1971): 286.

1975

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 336, no. 449, color repro.

1976

  • Ananoff, Alexandre. "François Boucher et l'Amérique." L'Oeil 251 (June 1976): 23.

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. François Boucher. 2 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1976: 1:410, no. 301, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 319-320, fig. 284.

1979

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 85, pl. 73.

1980

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. L'opera completa di Boucher. Milan, 1980: no. 312, repro. p. 110, color pl. XXVIII.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 334, no. 445, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 58, repro.

1986

  • Brunel, Georges. Boucher. New York, 1986: 241-243, fig. 199, pl. XXVIII.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 169, repro.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 56, fig. 40, 72 (not in the exhibition).

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 6, 33-38, color repro.

2014

  • Muchembled, Robert. Mysterieuse Madame de Pompadour. Paris, 2014: 374-380, fig. 3, 530 n. 64.

Inscriptions

On stretcher: label, encapsulated in mylar, "5578"; written, "11558F"

Wikidata ID

Q20178351

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