Apollo, c. 1752

Inscription

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

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.

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).

1973

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.

1978

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.

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