François Boucher

Sale, Paris, Hötel Drouot, 29 April 1892, lots 3 and 4;
Henry T. Dortic, Paris;
His deceased sale, New York, American Art Association, 14-15 December 1923, lots 508 and 509 (as by Marie Jeanne Buyeau);
There purchased by Count Alfonso P. Villa, New York;
By whose Estate sold ("Property of the Estate of the Late Count Alfonso P. Villa"), New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 12 March 1969, lot 45 (as a pair, by Marie Jeanne Buyeau);
There purchased by Col. C. Michael Paul;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 16 July 1969, lot 46A (as a pair, by Marie Jeanne Buyeau), to P. Elsbury for £950;
With François Heim, by 1979;
Anonymous sale, Monaco, Sotheby's, 22 June 1985, lot 167 (as a pair);
Madame Perrine Deguemp, Neuilly, France, until 1987;
From whom acquired by the present owner.

Tokyo, Wildenstein & Co.; François Boucher, 19 April - 31 May 1991, nos. 8 and 9, reproduced.

A. Michel, François Boucher, Paris, n.d. [1906], p. 87, no. 1556;
A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Paris 1976, vol. II, p. 129, cat. nos. 449 and 450, reproduced figs. 1263 and 1264;
A. Ananoff, L'Opera Completa di Boucher, Milan 1980, p. 123, cat. nos. 470 and 471, reproduced p. 124;
Stair Sainty Matthiesen, François Boucher, His Circle and Influence, exhibition catalogue, New York 1987, p. 61, under cat. no. 37;
E.A. Standen, "Country Children: Some Enfants de Boucher in Gobelins Tapestry," in Metropolitan Museum Journal, XXIX, 1994, pp. 120-121, 124, 131, notes 56 and 57, reproduced figs. 36 and 38.

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. Both of these works are very presentable. The linings on both pictures are old but good. The paintings seem to be clean and well retouched. Retouches have been added in a few spots in the skies of both pictures, but retouches are few and far between in the darker colors of the landscape and figures, with only slight abrasion visible in the left side of the foliage behind the shepherdess.
"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."

These delightful canvases served as models for two chair back patterns woven at the Gobelins tapestry manufactory as part of Boucher’s Country Children series.  The Gobelins manufactory had not customarily made tapestry upholstery to go with their sets of woven wall panels.  However, they began to do so in the 1740s in a concerted effort to compete with the rival establishment of Beauvais that had been successfully producing furniture upholstery as early as the 1690s.¹  Representations of children after designs by Boucher were popular and in great demand, and the artist produced tapestry designs for three series known as the Enfants de Boucher:  nude babies (with or without wings); fully clothed small children representing the Arts and Sciences; and the group comprising the Country Children.²  The designs from this last group are the ones most frequently found on sofas, chairs and fire screens and depict young girls and boys, of no clearly defined social class, wearing contemporary costume and engaging in outdoor rural activities.³  The Country Children compositions are also found in many related, drawings, prints and porcelain figurines.

Woven chair back panels based on the present two compositions can be found on two armchairs at Osterley Park, Middlesex (figs. 1 and 2) which are part of a set consisting of eight chairs and a sofa.  Each oval chair back is upholstered with a different pattern from the Country Children, with the seat covers woven with flowers on a simulated damask ground.  The tapestries of this set, which are still in their original chair frameworks and still set in the room for which they were made, were produced in the workshop of the weaver Jacques Neilson to accompany a set of the woven wall hangings called the Tentures de Boucher, commissioned in 1772.  The Tentures de Boucher was amongst the most popular sets produced at the Gobelins manufactory starting in the 1760s and was ordered by members of the aristocracy in both France and abroad who often further commissioned  various sets of complementary woven furniture.  The Osterley set of furniture is the only surviving one to include chair backs based on both The Little Gardener and The Little Shepherdess.⁴

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for confirming these works to be by Boucher on the basis of photographs.

1  See E.A. Standen, op. cit., p. 111.
2  Ibid., p. 112.
3  Ibid., p. 112.
4  A second chair back with the Little Shepherdess design is in the collection of the Mead Art Museum, Amherst, Massachusetts.