François Boucher

Most probably, Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset (1708-1776), Receveur général des Finances;
Most probably, his deceased sale, Paris, 27 February 1777, lot 189 (described in the catalogue as "la première pensée du tableau précedent, peinte en grisaille"; the preceding lot [188] being Francois Boucher's La Nativité de Notre-Seigneur);
Private Collection, Canada, thought to have been acquired by the mother of the present owner in France in the 1960s.

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. This painting is in beautiful condition. The canvas has an old lining. There is one repair on the reverse of the lining, addressing a small loss between the heads of Joseph and Mary. The red ground color is visible throughout, but this seems intentionally so. The frame could be repaired and perhaps the varnish adjusted. Although the painting is probably slightly dirty, it certainly looks lovely in its current state.
"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."

This charming and beautifully rendered oil sketch by Boucher is an exciting rediscovery.  In the same private collection for the past fifty years, the work was unknown to scholars and was presumably last recorded in the 1777 estate sale of Pieree-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset, Receveur général des Finances for Lyon and one of the greatest collectors of his day (see Provenance and note below).  The fluidity of the brushstrokes and masterful differentiation of light and shade are totally in keeping with Boucher's other known oil sketches, and this should be seen as an important addition to his oeuvre.

Dated to the 1760's, this work would seem to be the étude for the painting exhibited at the 1763 Salon.¹  Entitled Le Sommeil de l'Enfant Jésus, the canvas was recorded by Diderot and closely matches the composition of the present work:  the Christ Child is asleep with his mother in adoration before him; they are joined, suddenly, by an angel who materializes out of the air above, while Saint Joseph sleeps behind the Virgin.²  Although Diderot was not entirely positive in his review of the picture --as he almost never was with Boucher -- he found the angel and Saint Joseph particularly beautiful: "La gloire en est très-aérienne. L'ange qui vole est tout à  fait vapoureux. Il était impossible de toucher plus grandement et de donner une plus belle tête au Joseph qui sommeille derrière la Vierge..."³  This work is currently untraced but would seem to match the description of lot 188 in the Randon de Boisset sale, the work for which the current study was described as "la première pensée du tableau précedent, peinte en grisaille" (see Provenance).⁴  Furthermore, it would make sense that the collector would own both the finished composition and the étude, as he and Boucher were personal friends and Boucher even acted as his advisor on acquisitions.  It could be the case that the artist gave his patron the sketch as a gift after he had purchased the Salon picture, or that Randon de Boisset actively collected oil sketches, as he is known to have owned a number of such works by Rubens.

Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset was an avid collector, not only of Dutch and French paintings, but also of drawings, books, sculpture, porcelain and furnishings.  He travelled to Italy in 1752 and again in 1763; in 1766 he was in The Netherlands with Boucher.  In addition to the present work and the finished composition of The Nativity, which appeared as lots 188 and 189, his sale included ten other paintings by Boucher and numerous drawings.  Although both versions of the Nativity seem to have gone unrecorded after the sale, annotations in a copy of the catalogue conserved in the Bibliothèque Doucet, list the purchaser of the Salon composition as "de Wailly" for 800 livres and the purchaser of the present work as "de Wille" for 271 livres.  Alastair Laing has suggested that "de Wille" may be a mispelling of "de Wailly," as the noted architect and urban planner Charles de Wailly was himself a collector of Boucher's études and owned two other sketches, either of the Annunciation or Assumption - one of them also executed en camaïeu brun.⁵

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for confirming the attribution to Boucher on the basis of firsthand inspection and for his assistance in the cataloguing of the present lot.

1.  Alastair Laing, in written communication, 30 October 2010.
2.  See J. Seznec and J. Adhémar, eds., Diderot Salons, vol. 1: "1759, 1761, 1763," Oxford 1957, pp. 162, no. 9, and 204-205.
3.  Ibid., p. 204
4.  Unfortunately, it is impossible to know with certainty whether the Salon picture and lot 188 are the same painting, as the dimensions given in the auction catalogue seem to be incorrect ("ceintrée de haut, 1 pied 10 pouces de haut, 2 pieds 8 pouces de large," as opposed to the Salon dimensions "tableau cientrée de 2 pieds de haut, sur un pied de large").  It would seem plausible, however, that these dimensions are incorrect, as it would be highly unlikely that a religious composition with an arched top -- and in which, as Diderot points out, the glory is in the depiction of the angel and atmosphere -- would be horizontally rather than vertically oriented.
5.  Alastair Laing, in written communication, 30 October 2010.