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| Shepherd's Idyll |
Artist:François Boucher (French, Paris 1703–1770 Paris)
Date:1768
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:94 1/2 x 93 1/2 in. (240 x 237.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Julia A. Berwind, 1953
Together with its pendant, Washerwomen, this late pastoral work was, in all likelihood, painted for the château d'Hénonville, the country estate of Roslin d'Ivry. It was probably these works that Sir Joshua Reynolds saw and remarked upon when he visited Boucher's studio that same year.
Catalogue Entry
Shepherd’s Idyll and Washerwomen (53.225.2), Boucher’s largest late works, hark back to the pastoral style the artist had developed more than thirty years before, in the early 1730s. In the last full year of his life, 1769, demonstrating his continuing vitality in old age, he painted six mythologies, probably commissioned by Jean François Bergeret de Frouville (1719–1783), all on a similarly grand scale. The pair of paintings catalogued here came to light at the estate auction of baron Léopold Roslin d’Ivry (died 1883), and Alastair Laing has suggested that they may have been commissioned by Jean Marie Roslin, seigneur d’Ivry, for the family château at Hénonville. The seigneur d’Ivry was connected through his wife to Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt (1715–1785), Jean-François’s older brother and one of Boucher’s most important patrons.
All of the components of Boucher’s mature style in landscape are present here: deciduous trees that have the shape of Roman pines, pollarded willows, a bridge, a stream, a pool, a fountain, a thatched roof; cows, a donkey, sheep, dogs of indeterminate breed; and peasants whose stockings and colorful clothes are without tears or rents. Certainly the figures, especially the women, were not studied from life, for they had appeared with only slight variations in many other pictures over the years and Boucher would hardly have needed a model when painting them. His skill and technical facility are astonishing.
Katharine Baetjer 2014
Copyright Image
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