Fig. 1 François Boucher, The Education of the Virgin, Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum

Sensitively rendered in a rare but nonetheless distinctive combination of brown and white chalk on blue paper the present work is a preparatory study for the seated figure representing St. Anne, in an oil sketch en camaïeu brun on paper, that was probably the model for an exceedingly scarce engraving en manière de lavis by François Philippe Charpentier, of The Education of the Virgin, and for a colored version of that in oils on canvas, signed and dated 1766, that is now in the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona (fig.1).

Schreiber Jacoby notes that the seated figure of St. Anne also appears in an oval format oil sketch, representing the same subject, executed in camaieu brun, and suggests that this concurrence of brown media further strengthens the argument that Boucher specifically employed brown chalk for its tonal properties.

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for endorsing the attribution to Boucher upon first hand inspection of the drawing, and for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot.