Apollo

c. 1752

François Boucher

Artist, French, 1703 - 1770

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    black chalk and stumping, heightened with white chalk on greenish-gray laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith

  • Dimensions

    overall: 54.4 x 36.5 cm (21 7/16 x 14 3/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1980.64.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Aignan-Thomas Desfriches (1715-1800), first director of the Academy of the Arts of Design, Orléans; École académique et pratique de peinture, sculpture, architecture et arts dépendants du dessein d'Orléans, founded 1786, which later became the École régionale des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans (sim. To L.Supp. 1999b; perhaps a version used before the Revolution); deaccessioned when the schools architectural drawings were transferred to the Musée d'Orléans in 1907. Maître Georges Ryaux, Paris, 1954; Charles E. Slatkin Gallery, New York; to David Daniels, New York (sale, Sotheby's, London, 25 April 1978, no. 80); to Robert H. and Clarice Smith, Washington; gift to NGA in 1980.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1953

  • Figures nues d'école française. Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1953, no. 20.

1957

  • François Boucher, 1703-1770: Prints and Drawings. Charles E. Slatkin Gallery, New York, 1957, no. 18.

1960

  • Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture from Three Private Collections. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1960, no. 9.

1968

  • Loan Exhibition: Selections from the Drawing Collection of David Daniels. Minneapolis Institute of Arts and tour, 1968, no. 22.

1973

  • François Boucher in North American Collections: 100 Drawings. National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Art Institute of Chicago, 1973-1974, no. 68 (Regina Slatkin).

  • The Male Nude. Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra Univeristy, Hempstead, NY, 1973, no. 29.

1976

  • Old Master Drawings from American Collections. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976, no. 153 (Ebria Feinblatt).

1983

  • Graphics Survey Exhibition, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., May 1983.

1997

  • Six Centuries/Six Artists, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1997 (no cat.).

2003

  • The Drawings of François Boucher. The Frick Collection, New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 2003-2004, 106-107, 235, 246, no. 33 (Alastair Laing).

2009

  • Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2009, 122-123, 282, no. 52 (color).

Bibliography

n.d.

  • Jimeno, Frédéric, et al. Jean Bardin, 1732-1809: le feu sacré. Orléans, 2022: III.4, 230.

1967

  • Slatkin, Regina Shoolman. Review of A. Ananoff, L'Oeuvre dessiné de Boucher, Master Drawings 5, no. 1 (Spring, 1967): 56, 65, note 20.

1968

  • Wallace Collection Catalogues: Pictures and Drawings. London, 1968: 41, under P485.

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: 2:111, 114, no. 422/10, fig. 1201.

1978

  • Davis, Frank. "Precision and Beauty." Country Life 163 (8 June 1978): 1624-1625, fig. 3.

  • Jean-Richard, Pierrette. L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild au Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1978: 119, under no. 370.

1986

  • Brunel, Georges. Boucher. New York, 1986: 296.

1989

  • Ingamells, John. The Wallace Collection: Catalogue of Pictures. Vol. 3, French Before 1815. London, 1989: 72.

1992

  • Clements, Candace. "The Academy and the Other: Les Grâces and Le Genre Galant." Eighteenth-Century Studies 25, no. 4 (Summer 1992): 469ff, fig. 3.

2004

  • Hedley, Jo. François Boucher: Seductive Visions. Exh. cat. Wallace Collection. London, 2004: 112, reprod. 111, fig. 87.

Inscriptions

signed (?) in black chalk at lower right: f. Boucher; stenciled in brown ink at lower left: 34; numbered in pen and brown ink at lower left: 14-2(?); numbered in brown ink in the circular stamp of the ECOLE ACCADEMIQUE DE DESSINS D. ORLEANS: 49; verso, in pen and magenta ink at center left: [illeg.] 34 mai 1854, and in another hand in graphite at center: Academie par Francois Boucher; in pen and brown ink at lower left: T18a, with matting notes in graphite at center right

Wikidata ID

Q64569746

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