The Bath of Venus

1751

François Boucher

Painter, French, 1703 - 1770

A nude woman and three small, winged children gather among bushes and lush vegetation at the edge of a clear pool in this vertical painting. All four have pale skin and blond hair. The children are pudgy with baby-like proportions and have short gray and blue wings. The woman half reclines on swaths of white, pale pink, and peacock-blue fabric draped across the bushes or the ground. She leans her torso to our left and leans toward that elbow, which is propped up on the fabric. The toes of her right foot, on our left, brush the ground near the water, and her other leg is angled to continue the diagonal created by her elbow and torso. Two white doves nestle by her lower foot. Her ash-blond hair is bound up with pearls, and she has rosy cheeks, pink bow lips, and smooth skin. She reaches across her body and down to our left to touch a nearly nude young boy. He wears a butter-yellow garment pulled up around his chest, perhaps by the woman. A quiver of arrows hangs from a blue ribbon at his side, and he raises his hands before him, toward the woman's arm. To our right, one of the other children reclines on the pink and blue drapery and faces the woman in profile. The third child leans forward from the bushes behind the reclining child. The bushes and trees of the lush forest around the figures creates a V-shape with the people at the center. Vibrant blue sky fills the upper left quarter of the painting.

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In Enlightenment France the dedicated search to define truth engendered a re–evaluation of the natural. The belief that it was right to follow nature, and that the pursuit of pleasure was natural, influenced the prevailing conception of the nude. François Boucher, who became the first painter to Louis XV, fully explored his century's interest in the relationship between the rational and the sensual.

In The Bath of Venus, the mythological goddess has lost any allusions to classical history painting and is offered up to the viewer as an object of physical beauty. Venus, located in a lush garden setting, coyly attempts to restrain a pouting Cupid as two putti point to the scene in mocking disapproval. Boucher's success in communicating the charm and sensuality of the nude lies in his mastery of color and fluid brushstrokes. Venus is rendered in porcelain tones, delicately accented in pink, her body highlighted against luscious blue velvet and silk. The two white doves at her feet contrast a thick impasto surface with the transparent water and cool greens and blues of the foliage. The painting exemplifies the rococo love of asymmetric lines and sinuous curves, artfully arranged to seduce both the eye and the mind of the beholder.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 55

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 107 x 84.8 cm (42 1/8 x 33 3/8 in.)
    framed: 132.1 x 110.2 x 7.6 cm (52 x 43 3/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.7.2

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  French Paintings of the Fifteenth through Eighteenth Centuries: The Bath of Venus, 1751

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

Painted for Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour [1721-1764] and installed in the appartement des bains in the Château de Bellevue, outside Paris; removed c. 1757; recorded 1764 in the vestibule of the ground floor of the Hôtel d'Evreux, Pompador's Parisian residence; by inheritance to her brother, Abel François Poisson, marquis de Ménars et de Marigny [1727-1781], Château de Ménars, Paris; installed in the gallery of Marigny's residence, rue St. Thomas du Louvre, Paris, by 1777;[1] (his estate sale, at his residence by Basan and Joullain, Paris, 18 March-6 April 1782 [postponed from late February], no. 21); purchased by Jean Baptiste Pierre Le Brun [1748-1813], Paris and London.[2] Baron Alfred Charles de Rothschild [1842-1918], Halton House, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, by 1884;[3] bequest to Grace Elvina Hinds Duggan Curzon, marchioness of Curzon [1879-1958], Kedleston Hall, Derby, Derbyshire; (her sale, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, New York, 22 April 1932, no. 80); Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; gift 1943 to NGA.
[1] The painting was recorded there in 1777, when the marquis had them cleaned by Hoogstael. The documents, in the Archives de la Ville in Paris, Fonds Marigny, NA 102, fol. 90 verso, were discovered by Alden Gordon, and his notes from them were sent with a letter to David Rust dated 15 March 1983, all in NGA curatorial files.
[2] Paul Matthews, of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, kindly brought to the Gallery's attention a Boucher Venus and Cupids that appeared in the 1785 sale of Noël Desenfans (d. 1807), a dealer who was one of Le Brun's business partners (sale, Christie's, London, May 11-14, 1785, 2nd day, no. 53; e-mail to Curatorial Records, 6 May 2004, NGA curatorial files). There is no description of the painting in the sale catalogue, so it is not possible to say with certainty that this was the Gallery's painting. The purchaser at the 1785 sale was recorded as "Dillon," who also purchased two other lots. Marijke Booth, of Christie's Archives Department, suggests that this could either be Charles Dillon-Lee, 12th viscount Dillon (1745-1813) or Edward Count Dillon (1751-1839), both collectors during this period (e-mail to Anne Halpern, 9 August 2007, NGA curatorial files).
[3] Alfred did not inherit the painting from his father, and the painting is not included in Alfred's 1884 catalogue, so he must have acquired it himself at a later date (e-mail from Michael Hall, curator to Edmund de Rothschild, to Anne Halpern, 3 August 2008, NGA curatorial files).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

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).

Bibliography

1880

  • Goncourt, Edmond de, and Jules de Goncourt. L'art du dix-huitième siècle. 2 vols. Paris, 1880-1884: 1:192.

1903

  • "Madame de Pompadour et les Arts." Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 3rd ser., vol. 62 (August 1903): 402

  • Nolhac, Pierre de. "Quelques tableaux de Boucher de la Collection de M. le Baron Alfred de Rothschild (Londres)." Les Arts. 20 (August 1903): 2-4, repro. cover

1906

  • Michel, André. François Boucher. Paris, 1906: no. 305.

1907

  • Nolhac, Pierre de. François Boucher: premier peintre du roi. Paris, 1907: 47, 124, repro. opposite 124

1925

  • Nolhac, Pierre de. Boucher, premier peintre du roi. Paris, 1925: 95

1932

  • Art News. 30, no. 32 (7 May 1932): repro. on cover

  • Beaux-Arts 10 (May 1932): repro. p. 9

  • "$31,000 for Painting: Sales from Lady Curzon's Collection Total $93,672." The New York Sun. 23 April 1932:18

  • "Boucher Painting Sold for $31,000." The New York Times. 23 April 1932: 34

  • "Chester Dale Secures Important Boucher from Curzon Collection in American-Anderson Galleries' Sale." Art News, 30, no. 31 (30 April 1932): 5+

  • Cortissoz, Royal. "François Boucher, Apropos of a Painting now in New York." The New York Herald Tribune (1 May 1932): section VII, 10, repro.

1939

  • Cordey, Jean. Inventaire des biens de Madame de Pompadour rédigé après don décès. Paris, 1939: no. 1230

  • Horticq, Louis. La Peinture française XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 1939: repro. frontispiece

1942

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 16, repro.

1943

  • Washington Times-Herald (18 July 1943): C-10.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 114, color repro.

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1944: 16, repro.

1953

  • French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1953: 19, repro.

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 46, repro.

  • Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth Century Pictures in Washington." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 47, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 227, repro. 223.

1959

  • Cooke, Hereward Lester. French Paintings of the 16th-18th Centuries in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Four in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 34, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 210, repro.

1965

  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 19, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 17.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:314, color repro.

1968

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

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 38, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 334-5, no. 447, repro.

1976

  • Ananoff, Alexandre. "François Boucher et l'Amérique." L'Oeil 251 (June 1976): 22.

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. François Boucher. 2 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1976: 2:80-82, no. 377, repro.

1980

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. L'opera completa di Boucher. Milan, 1980:120, no. 399, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 332, no. 443, color repro.

  • Norton, Thomas E. 100 Years of Collecting in America: the Story of Sotheby Parke Bernet. New York, 1984: 116.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 57, repro.

1986

  • François Boucher, 1703-1770. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Grand Palais, Paris. New York, c. 1986: 256

  • Brunel, Georges. Boucher. New York, 1986: 233, 247.

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: 412.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 170, repro.

  • Fiero, Gloria K. The Age of the Baroque and the European Enlightenment. The Humanist Tradition 4. 1st ed. [7th ed. 2015] Dubuque, Iowa, 1992: 138-140, fig. 26.8.

1998

  • Fiero, Gloria K. Faith, Reason and Power in the Early Modern World. The Humanistic Tradition 4. 3rd ed. New York, 1998: no. 26.7, repro.

2002

  • Madam de Pompadour et les arts. Exh. cat. Musée national des château de Versailles et de Trianon; Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; National Gallery, London; Paris, 2002: 100, 176-177.

  • Jones, Colin. Madame de Pompadour: Images of a Mistress. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London, 2002: 90-91.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 250, no. 201, color repro., as Venus Consoling Love.

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. 3, 19-25, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower left in black paint: F Boucher / 1751

Wikidata ID

Q12860070

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