Louis-Léopold Boilly

Simon Chenard, His sale, Coutelier & Paillet, Paris, November 19, 1822, lot 90, sold for 341 francs ("La danse des chiens; sujet peint sur fond blanc");
James Pourtalès-Gorgier, Paris; 
His sale, Paris (Pillet, Escribe), March 27, 1865, lot 226. sold for 1,300 francs;
with J. Seligmann & Fils, Paris, until 1928;
Mrs. J.F. Baker, Jr., before 1930;
with Knoedler, New York (according to stickers on the reverse of the painting);
Sale: William Doyle, New York, 24 September, 1980, lot 167;
with Richard Green, London, from whom acquired by the current owner.

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, La Révolution Francaise, January-March, 1928, cat. no. 904 (as "La Danse des Chiens");
Paris, Jacques Seligmann & Fils, Exposition L.-L. Boilly, 31 May-22 June 1930, cat. no. 18 (on loan from Mrs. Baker, as "La Pièce Curieuse").

H. Harrisse, L. L. Boilly, peintre, dessinateur et lithographe: sa vie et son oeuvre, Paris 1898, p. 97, cat. no. 157 (as "La Danse des Chiens"), p. 174, cat. no 1041 (as "La Pièce Curieuse);
P. Marmottan, Le Peintre Louis Boilly, Paris 1913, illus, p. 68;
A. Mabille de Poncheville, Boilly, Paris 1931, pp. 92, 172;
J. Ingamells, The Wallace collection. Catalogue of pictures, III : French before 1815, London 1989, p. 384;
S.L. Siegfried, The Art of Louis-Léopold Boilly, New Haven and London, 1995, p. 208, footnote 46.

ENGRAVED:
L. Darcis as "La Pièce Curieuse", published March 26, 1797.

 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This humorous painting has an old glue lining but has been recently cleaned and is in beautiful condition with only a few fine isolated retouches showing in the white background. The figures are in beautiful state and the work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

One of the greatest and most incisive social observers of French society during the late 18^th and early 19^th Century, Boilly painted numerous depictions of daily life in Paris, specializing in scenes drawn from around the city, and ranging in subject from its most elegant citizens to the people of the street.  In the present canvas (alternately titled "La Danse des Chiens" or "La Pièce Curieuse"), he portrays the latter: a street performer with his animals.  The man is shown beating a drum and playing a flageolet urging two dogs to dance to his tune.  In contrast to their master, the dogs-- one female and one male—are dressed in the height of fashion; she wears a high-waisted sheer dress and a bonnet, and he wears a grey coat and green stock, his hat at a rakish angle.  Behind the musician sits a muzzled (and annoyed) bear who wears the Phrygian cap of the revolution; his ear is being pulled by a monkey dressed in military uniform, who waggles a sword at him. 

Street entertainment such as this would have become common once again under the Directoire and such an outlandish scene would of course have been of interest to any passerby. But in this case, Boilly is not merely recording an amusing incident that he might have seen in the public spaces of Paris.  Rather, he is making a subtle and carefully calibrated social comment, so understated as to be almost opaque to the modern viewer.  During the later years of the 1790s, Boilly examined the social customs of his day, and the extravagance of the young and fashionable set, exemplified by the "Incroyables" and the "Merveilleuses," the men and women whose outlandish and extreme dress had caused public scandal.  In the present case, these are represented by the dogs who have taken up their fashion sense, including the transparent dress of the dancing bitch.  The remaining figures, on the other hand, are more representative of the recent Revolution, the figure of the Animal Trainer and the bear both wearing tricouleur badges on their hat.  It is perhaps here where Boilly is making his most subtle statement about the taming of the revolution, a subject that he must have been clever enough to handle with great care.  Only a few years before this picture was painted he had run afoul of the government, being denounced to the Comité du Salut Public in March 1794.¹ The restrained bear, threated by an armed "monkey of the army" must have had particular meaning to Boilly whose own life had been threatened by the excesses of the Terror.

That the Pièce Curieuse has satirical overtones is confirmed by its relationship to a famous set of four canvases by the artist, all comments on contemporary social behavior under the Directoire, and which allow for a secure dating. In about 1797, Boilly as well as other artists including Carle Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Isabey created drawings which were turned into engravings, the series entitled Les Folies du Jour.² Boilly created four compositions for the group: Les Croyables, Faison la Paix, Point de Convention, and (somewhat confusingly given the name of the whole set of engravings) La Folie de Jour.  All of these depicted three figures of various social rank and made sly comment on the mores of the day.  The prints were made by the famous engraver and friend of Boilly Salvadore Tresca.  The artist also painted these images, presumably as the guide for the engravings as they were all later recorded in the estate sale of Tresca himself.  These paintings are now in a private collection, Brussels and all of them are on the same cream-white background as the present painting and of matching dimensions. The present painting was also engraved, but by Louis Darcis (see fig. 1) rather than by Tresca. Given the subject that it represents, and the relationship to the set of paintings from the Folies series, it must date to about the same time, 1797. Interestingly, the present canvas' first owner was the singer Simon Chenard, a friend of the artist, whose collection also contained the drawings made of the Folies compositions, as well as that for another such satire of this time, the Marche Incroyable.³

Based on photographs, Etienne Breton and Pascal Zuber have confirmed the attribution of the painting and will include it in their catalogue raisonné of the works of Boilly, in preparation.

1.  Boilly was accused by his fellow artist Wicar of producing works of art that were deemed "d'une obscénité révoltante pour les moeurs républicaines".
2.  The engravings after Boilly's paintings were legally registered at the Bibliotheque Nationale from early February to late March 1797 (see Siegfried op. cit., p. 208).
3.  See Siegfried op. cit., p. 208, footnote 46.  Chenard was also painted by Boilly in the guise of a Sans-culotte in 1792.