François Boucher

H. Brame, Paris;
purchased from him in 1924 by Georges Dormeuil (L.1146a),
thence by descent to the present owners

Amiens, Musée de Picardie, and Versailles, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles: Les chasses exotiques de Louis XV, 1995-96, no. 20

A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Lausanne/Paris 1976, vol. I, pp. 250-51, cat. 125/2, reproduced;
François Boucher 1703-1770, exhib. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Paris, Grand Palais, 1986-87, p. 174, under no. 29

Laid down. A little very light foxing and surface dirt, but chalk extremely fresh and strong. Sold in a superb 18th-century French tabernacle-style frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The magnificent, freely executed studies on this outstanding sheet all relate to the two figures, one mounted and the other on foot, to the extreme right of Boucher's monumental painting La Chasse du Léopard (fig. 1), which was commissioned from the artist in 1736 for the Petits Cabinets du Roi at Versailles, and now hangs in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens.¹  The painting was one of a series of six representations of Chasses Exotiques, each of which was commissioned from a different artist:  the other canvases, depicting the Chasse du Lion, Chasse de l'Eléphant, Chasse de l'Ours, Chasse du Tigre, and Chasse Chinois were painted by Jean-François De Troy, Charles Parrocel, Carle Vanloo, Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater respectively.  Two years later, Boucher himself added a seventh scene, Chasse du Crocodil, to the series.²

The Chasse du Léopard is one of the artist’s most important early commissions, received at a crucial moment in his career.  Boucher, who had been elected to the French Academy at the end of 1734, very rapidly found himself having to stand in for the absent François Lemoyne, and became adjunct professor already in 1735.  Then, hardly a year later, he received this first major royal commission.  It was perhaps in response to the new challenges posed, both by his new teaching responsibilities at the academy and by this highly important commission, that he began at this time to make studies like this of the more important and challenging details of the compositions on which he was working.  Although the present sheet of studies clearly reflects the academic tradition of earlier masters such as Charles Lebrun and Charles Delafosse – in the case of the latter also in the use of the trois crayons medium – similar sheets of studies are almost unknown in Boucher’s work before this time, and fairly soon afterwards become infrequent once more, as his attention in drawings turned more to compositional studies, designs for prints, and more elaborate, finished sheets intended for sale.

Indeed, it has even been suggested that this rather brief concentration on studies of this type reflects a feeling on Boucher’s part that at this moment, as he embarked on his career as Academician and recipient of Royal commissions, he was not perhaps as technically accomplished in the depiction of, for example, hands as he would himself have wished.  The present drawing does, however, demonstrate very clearly Boucher's abilities in these respects, and it is also worth noting that a larger number of similar studies by Boucher may in fact once have existed, but are unknown today;  the sales of the property of three of his main pupils, Charles Michel-Ange Challe, Jean-Baptiste Deshays and Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, all contained large groups of studies by their master, Boucher, specifically including studies of hands, feet, arms and other such details.³

Françoise Joulie has kindly shed interesting light on Boucher's working method in making a sheet of studies like this.  She tells us that he would first have made his sketches in red chalk alone, then taken a counterproof of this preliminary stage, before working the studies up further in white and black chalk.  No such counterproof is known, but close examination of the red chalk lines does indeed support this proposed sequence of execution. 

In remarkably fresh condition, this exceptional sheet of studies has a directness and power rarely encountered in the drawings of Boucher. 

1.  Inv. 1875-40; Ananoff, op. cit., cat. 125
2.  For a full discussion of the series, see Amiens/Versailles, exhib. cat., op. cit. 1995-96
3.  e.g. Challe sale, 9 March 1778, lot 976; Deshays sale, 26 March 1765, lot 95 ("cinquante études de mains, bras, jambes et pieds..par Boucher);  Baudoin sale, 15 February 1770, lot 95; we are very grateful to Françoise Joulie for these references