François Boucher

Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset (1708-1776);
His (deceased) sale, Paris, Chariot, 27 February ff., 1777, lot 199, sold for 682 livres;
Jean-Nicolas de Boulogne (1726-1787);
His (deceased) sale, Paris, Bizet, 22 November, 1787, lot 51, sold for 97 livres;
Louis Robert de Saint-Victor (1738-1822);
His (deceased) sale, Paris, Mérault, 26 November 1822 - 7 January 1823, lot 613 ('Un paysage. On voit une cabane au bord d'une rivière, près d'un petit pont en bois. Bois. Largeur 13 pouces hauteur 9 pouces'), sold for 12 livres;
Daniel Saint (1778-1847);
His sale, Paris, Bonnefons, 4-14 May 1846, lot 46 ('Paysage pittoresque. Une passerelle traverse une rivière sur laquelle est un bateau d'ou des pêcheurs jettent leurs filets').

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The oak panel is in a good, flat condition, without joins or repairs. The paint surface is sound but there is evidence of past instability and flaked loss to the sky with repairs to the top left corner, the clouds and sky top right and the area of sky in between, this is especially visible in raking light. A significant part of the restoration here is excessive and clumsy but it is difficult to ascertain the extent of the loss. The discoloured restoration visible to the handrail of the bridge masks pentimenti; the figures, foliage and foreground are well preserved, barring some minor paint loss and the clumsy reduction of fine shrinkage cracks, and the paint texture, impasto and colours are in good original condition, the finer details remaining uncompromised. Removing the discoloured varnish would significantly improve the tonality."
"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."

Hitherto considered lost, this painting has the distinction of having belonged to Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset (1708-1776), one of the most famous collectors of the eighteenth century and a personal friend of Boucher himself.  From his lucrative positions first as Fermier Général and then as Recéveur Général des Finances of the Généralité of Lyon, Randon de Boisset's enormous wealth allowed him to build a huge library and a famous collection of paintings, sculptures and porcelain.  Of his 237 paintings, the majority were drawn from the Dutch School of the 17th century and the French School of the 18th, and boasted, inter alia, Rembrandt's Supper at Emmaus (Paris, Louvre) and Watteau's Venetian Festival (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland).  Along with his contemporaries such as Pierre-Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt, he also amassed a large collection of drawings by Boucher, who he considered a friend and whom he accompanied on a trip to the Netherlands in 1766. His posthumous sale in Paris in 1777 was one of the most widely publicised of its day and attracted collectors from all over Europe.

This painting is typical of the cabinet-sized pictures that Boucher painted for a number of years and in variety of genres for his patrons.  His landscapes in this vein are typically small scale and deliberately artificial but executed with a supremely painterly touch.  In its general design it recalls Boucher's La Passerelle of 1760 now in the Toledo Museum of Art ¹ and his Landscape with a weir of 1761 in a private collection², in which figures disport on or around a centrally placed wooden bridge.  The charm and appeal of such landscapes lay precisely in their artifice and virtuosity rather then in any concept of truth-to-nature.  As De Goncourt memorably remarked of them: 'Nature for him is a jolly racket....As a landscapist Boucher's sole preoccupation seems to have been to relieve his age from boredom of Nature...' ('La nature, pour lui, est un joli tapage...Paysagiste, Boucher ne semble avoir d'autre préoccupation que celle de sauver à son temps l'ennui de la nature...')³.

It is interesting to note how the prices achieved by this painting reflect the relative fortunes of Boucher's reputation over the years.  At the Randon de Boisset sale in 1777 it fetched the high price of 682 livres.  By the time it was sold from the estate of its next owner, the financier Jean-Nicolas Boulogne de Preminville, Boucher's stock had fallen to the extent that the painting was sold for a mere 97 livres.  At the posthumous sale of Robert de Saint Victor (who also bought Carle Vanloo's Adoration des Bergers from the Randon de Boisset sale) it brought only 12 livres.  

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for confirming the attribution to Boucher following inspection of the original, and for his reconstruction of the painting's Provenance.

1. A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Paris 1976, vol. II, p. 201, no. 532, reproduced.
2. Exhibited, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit, Institute of Arts, and Paris, Grand Palais, François Boucher 1703-1770, 1986-87, no. 74, reproduced.
3. E. and J. de Goncourt, Boucher, Paris 1881, pp. 214-215.