François Boucher Paris 1703 - 1770

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

François Boucher
atreus showing his brother thyestes the heads of his own children, whose bodies he had unwittingly eaten
red chalk; within drawn frame;
numbered in brown ink lower right: 15 L(ivres)

Provenance

Bears unidentified collector's mark, lower left (not in Lugt);
purchased London, Christie's, 29 November 1983, lot 102 (as Attributed to Michel François Dandré-Bardon)

Literature

Alastair Laing, The Drawings of François Boucher, exhibition catalogue, New York, The Frick Collection, and Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, 2003, p. 43, under no. 2;
Françoise Joulie, et al., Esquisses, pastels et dessins de François Boucher dans les collections privées, exhibition catalogue, Versailles, Musée Lambinet, 2004, p. 34, under no. 13, reproduced, fig. 1

Catalogue Note

When sold in 1983, this drawing was attributed to Dandré-Bardon, but as Mme. Joulie has pointed out, before Dandré-Bardon's departure for Rome in 1725, he and the young Boucher seem to have worked very closely, perhaps in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, and as a result their works from this period have sometimes been confused.

Another version of this early composition by Boucher, datable to around 1723-4, was included in the 2004 Versailles exhibition (see Literature). As Alastair Laing has kindly pointed out, the present example seems slightly the more freely executed and spontaneous of the two and therefore he believes it is the first version. He identified the subject and related it to several other stylistically homogeneous early drawings by Boucher, with obscure classical subjects (loc. cit.). In this case the macabre story was probably known to Boucher through the tragedy Atrée et Thyeste by Crébillon père, published in 1707. Thyestes seduced the wife of his brother Atreus, and in revenge the latter served Thyestes his own children to eat at a banquet, then afterwards presented him with their heads to show what he had done.