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Circle of Louis-Léopold Boilly La Bassée 1761 - 1845 Paris
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Description
- Louis Léopold Boilly
- The Billiard Players
- oil on canvas
Provenance
With Gilbert Levy, Paris;
René Fribourg, New York;
Sale, The René Fribourg Collection, London, Sotheby's, June 26, 1963, lot 72 (as Louis-Leopold Boilly);
S. Higgins;
Anonymous Sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, December 6-7, 1965, lot 142 (as Louis-Leopold Boilly et son Atelier);
With French & Co, New York, 1976;
The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk;
By whom sold, ("The Estate of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr."), New York, Sotheby's, June 1, 1989, lot 112 (as circle of Louis-Leopols Boilly), there purchased by the present collector.
Exhibited
New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Art Treasures Exhibition, 1955, no. 351;
Norfolk, Chrysler Museum, on loan, 1976-1989;
Raleigh, Museum of North Carolina, French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum, 1986-1987, pp. 35-37, no. 18, reproduced.
Norfolk, Chrysler Museum, on loan, 1976-1989;
Raleigh, Museum of North Carolina, French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum, 1986-1987, pp. 35-37, no. 18, reproduced.
Literature
Le Dessin Français de Claude à Cezanne dans les Collections Hollandaises Complété d'un Choix d'Autographes des Artistes Exposés (Exhibition Catalogue), Institut Néerlandais, Paris and Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1964, p. 113;
E. M. Zafran, "Vigée Lebrun, Boilly Join Museum's French Masters", Chrysler Museum Bulletin, November 1976, vol. 5, no. 11, reproduced;
J. S. Hallam, The Genre Works of Louis-Lepold Boilly (dissertation), University of Washington, Seattle, 1979, pp. 97, 180, no. 195;
J.S. Hallam, "The Two Manners of Louis-Leopold Boilly and French Genre Painting in Transition", The Art Bulletin, December 1981, vol. LXIII, pp. 628-30, no.4, fig. 15, "... an unsigned version of [the painting] in the Hermitage... The execution is meticulous and the strong light entering through the skylights focuses attention on the figures surrounding the billiard table. A young woman viewed rather provocatively from the rear is about to play a ball, while the gentleman in the high hat at her right awaits his turn... This scene of respectable bourgeois life was evidently very popular at the Salon, for one critic noted that the public stood in line in order to view the painting.";
V. N. Berezina, The Hermitage Catalogue of Western European Paintings: French Painting Early and Mid-Nineteenth Century, Florence, 1983, p. 59;
J. C. Harrison, "Nineteenth Century French Art-I", The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide, 1985, no. 5, reproduced;
J. C. Harrison, French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum, 1986, pp. 35-36, no. 18.
E. M. Zafran, "Vigée Lebrun, Boilly Join Museum's French Masters", Chrysler Museum Bulletin, November 1976, vol. 5, no. 11, reproduced;
J. S. Hallam, The Genre Works of Louis-Lepold Boilly (dissertation), University of Washington, Seattle, 1979, pp. 97, 180, no. 195;
J.S. Hallam, "The Two Manners of Louis-Leopold Boilly and French Genre Painting in Transition", The Art Bulletin, December 1981, vol. LXIII, pp. 628-30, no.4, fig. 15, "... an unsigned version of [the painting] in the Hermitage... The execution is meticulous and the strong light entering through the skylights focuses attention on the figures surrounding the billiard table. A young woman viewed rather provocatively from the rear is about to play a ball, while the gentleman in the high hat at her right awaits his turn... This scene of respectable bourgeois life was evidently very popular at the Salon, for one critic noted that the public stood in line in order to view the painting.";
V. N. Berezina, The Hermitage Catalogue of Western European Paintings: French Painting Early and Mid-Nineteenth Century, Florence, 1983, p. 59;
J. C. Harrison, "Nineteenth Century French Art-I", The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide, 1985, no. 5, reproduced;
J. C. Harrison, French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum, 1986, pp. 35-36, no. 18.
Catalogue Note
The present painting is a repetition after Boilly's Un Jeu de Billard (1807), exhibited by Boilly at the Salon of 1808, and now in the collection of The Hermitage, Leningrad. According to the 1965 sale (see Provenance below) the original painting was engraved by F. Villain in 1828 and a drawing of the same subject is in the Duit Collection.