François Boucher

French, 1703 - 1770

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François Boucher, A Nude Woman Reaching to the Right, c. 1769, black chalk with stumping, heightened with white chalk on brown laid paper (formerly blue), Gift of Robert H. and Clarice Smith, 1980.64.3

A Nude Woman Reaching to the Right

François Boucher · c. 1769 · black chalk with stumping, heightened with white chalk on brown laid paper (formerly blue) ·  Accession ID  1980.64.3

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Les Metamorphoses d'Ovide (volume III)

François Denis Née, Nicolas Ponce, Jean Francois Rousseau, Saint-Gois, Philippe Louis Parizeau, Pierre-Philippe Choffard, Louis-Claude Legrand, Jean-Baptiste Blaise Simonet, Augustin de Saint-Aubin, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Various Artists, Ovid, François Boucher, Charles Eisen, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Charles Monnet, Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger, Hubert François Gravelot, Jean-Charles Baquoy, Pierre-François Basan, Louis Binet, Antoine-Jean Duclos, Emmanuel Jean Nepomucène de Ghendt, Isidore-Stanislas Helman, Nicolas Delaunay, Noël Le Mire, Jean Jacques Le Veau, Joseph de Longueil, Louis-Joseph Masquelier, Jean Massard, Simon Charles Miger · published 1767/1771 · 1 vol: ill: etchings and engravings by various artists ·  Accession ID  1942.9.1796

François Boucher, Venus appuyee sur son cher Adonis ..., 1767, black and white chalk on faded blue laid paper, Widener Collection, 1942.9.1050

Venus appuyee sur son cher Adonis ...

François Boucher · 1767 · black and white chalk on faded blue laid paper ·  Accession ID  1942.9.1050

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Les Metamorphoses d'Ovide (volume IV)

Various Artists, Ovid, François Boucher, Charles Eisen, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Charles Monnet, Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger, Hubert François Gravelot, Jean-Charles Baquoy, Pierre-François Basan, Louis Binet, Antoine-Jean Duclos, Emmanuel Jean Nepomucène de Ghendt, Isidore-Stanislas Helman, Nicolas Delaunay, Noël Le Mire, Jean Jacques Le Veau, Joseph de Longueil, Louis-Joseph Masquelier, Jean Massard, Simon Charles Miger, François Denis Née, Nicolas Ponce, Jean Francois Rousseau, Saint-Gois, Philippe Louis Parizeau, Pierre-Philippe Choffard, Louis-Claude Legrand, Jean-Baptiste Blaise Simonet, Augustin de Saint-Aubin, Jean-Baptiste Le Prince, Jacques Le Roy · published 1767/1771 · 1 vol: ill: etchings and engravings by various artists after Boucher, Eisen, Monnet, and J.M. Moreau ·  Accession ID  1942.9.1797

François Boucher, Design for a Funeral Monument, c. 1767, black chalk and stumping with touches of graphite, heightened with white, on brown laid paper, Gift of Arthur L. Liebman, 1992.87.28

Design for a Funeral Monument

François Boucher · c. 1767 · black chalk and stumping with touches of graphite, heightened with white, on brown laid paper ·  Accession ID  1992.87.28

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.
François Boucher, Madame Bergeret, possibly 1766, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.3

Madame Bergeret

François Boucher · possibly 1766 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.3

François Boucher, The Archery Contest, 1765, black and white chalks on light brown laid paper (formerly blue), Woodner Collection, Gift of Andrea Woodner, 2006.11.65

The Archery Contest

François Boucher · 1765 · black and white chalks on light brown laid paper (formerly blue) ·  Accession ID  2006.11.65

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.”
François Boucher, Allegory of Painting, 1765, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.1

Allegory of Painting

François Boucher · 1765 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.7.1

François Boucher, Aurora and Cephalus, c. 1766, brown chalk with stumping on light beige laid paper, with later framing line in brown ink, Widener Collection, 1942.9.992

Aurora and Cephalus

François Boucher · c. 1766 · brown chalk with stumping on light beige laid paper, with later framing line in brown ink ·  Accession ID  1942.9.992

François Boucher, Aurora Heralding the Arrival of the Morning Sun, c. 1765, brown and black chalk with stumping, heightened with white chalk on buff laid paper, Gift of Dian Woodner, 2006.168.1

Aurora Heralding the Arrival of the Morning Sun

François Boucher · c. 1765 · brown and black chalk with stumping, heightened with white chalk on buff laid paper ·  Accession ID  2006.168.1

Bibliography

1880

  • Goncourt, Edmond de, and Jules de Goncourt. L'art du dix-huitième siécle. 2 vols. Paris, 1880-1882.

1976

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. François Boucher. 2 vols. Lausanne and Paris, 1976.

1980

  • Ananoff, Alexandre, with Daniel Wildenstein. L'opera completa di Boucher. Milan, 1980.

1986

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

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: 11.