弗朗索瓦‧布雪

By tradition Mme. de Pompadour (based on an old inscription on the reverse; see note);
Russian collection, 19th century;
Mme. C. Lelong;
By whom sold, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 1 May 1903, lot 5;
With Hamburger Frères, Paris, 1921;
William Randolph Hearst;
His sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 5-7 January 1939, lot 22;
There acquired by B. Trevor for $5,500;
From whom acquired by Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York;
From whom acquired by the late owner in 1987, and thence by descent.

New York, Stair Sainty Matthiesen, Françcois Boucher, His Circle and Influence, 30 September - 25 November 1987, no. 31.

A. Michel, François Boucher, Paris 1906, cat. no. 1771;
P. de Nolhac, François Boucher, premier peintre du Roi, Paris 1907, p. 163;
H. Macfall, Boucher, London 1908, p. 155, reproduced p. 122;
A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Paris 1976, vol. II, p. 12, cat. no. 318, reproduced fig. 910;
A. Laing, in François Boucher 1703-1770, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1986, p. 282, under cat. no. 69;
G.S. Sainty, in François Boucher, His Circle and Influence, exhibition catalogue, New York 1987, pp. 53-55, reproduced pl. IV.

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 work has an old lining. This lining is good in many respects. The four spandrels in the corners are visibly cracked and may be painted with a non-original ochre color. The only visible structural issue seems to be in the sky in the upper left, where a 2 inch horizontal break in the canvas is slightly raised. The bulk of the landscape, the mill and the trees on either side are in lovely condition. There is slight thinness to the profiles of the roof and chimney of the mill and the retouches here are noticeably discolored. The sky is slightly thin particularly in the upper left and on the far right above the tree line. The work is unevenly cleaned. The sky is more or less clean, but a good deal of yellowed varnish is still visible in the water and in pockets within the landscape. The work should be properly cleaned. The slight thinness in the bridge to the mill on the right, in the water above the back of the seated boy, and in the upper right and upper left of the sky should be carefully retouched. The four corners are hidden under the current frame.
"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 luminous landscape depicts one of the mills near Charenton, a town upriver and to the east of Paris at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne.  Called Quiquengrogne (an alliterative name supposedly derived from the groaning sound of its wheel), this particular mill was unusually picturesque and captured the imagination of numerous artists in the 18^th century, such as Nicolas Vleughels and Nicolas Lancret.¹  Boucher himself depicted the structure several times, including a painting, now lost, known from an engraving by J.-P. Le Bas of 1747;² in the background of the cartoon for his tapestry La Fontaine d’Amour dated 1748 (Getty Museum, Malibu); and in a painting on canvas dated 1758 (The Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio).  Another lost painting of the subject was in the Supplement of the Sorbet sale in Paris on 1 April 1776, lot 214, and known from a sketch by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin which he drew in his copy of the sale catalogue (Wrightsman Collection, New York).  Though difficult to date precisely, the present work was probably painted in the late 1740s (Ananof, see Literature, dates it to 1748).

The depictions of the mill structure by Boucher and other artists are quite varied.  This might be explained by the existence of more than one mill of this unusual form but, more likely, these differences are due to artistic license and, in Boucher’s case, to a highly romanticized portrayal.³  Le Bas's engraving after Boucher (fig. 1) shows the mill with a three-arched stone bridge rather than the four-arched bridge in the present painting.  The mill structure has a single wheel rather than two wheels as shown here (as in Lancret’s composition which also shows two wheel openings).  Both the tapestry cartoon and Toledo painting depict the mill with one wheel; it is seen at a slight angle and with other variations to the structure.  

An inscription on the reverse of this painting, in what appears to be an 18th century hand, states that it was at one time in the possession of Mme de Pompadour, official mistress of King Louis XV, and given to her by the artist Jacques-Andre Portail (1695-1759).  Portail was Dessinateur du Roi and Gardes des Tableaux.  Though Mme de Pompadour is known to have owned a number of works by Boucher, no landscapes by the artist were included in the inventory or sale following her death.  It may be that whoever wrote the inscription on this painting confused it with the painting mentioned above, which was later engraved by Le Bas with a dedication to Portail ("Première vue de Charenton" and "Dédié à M. Portail Peintre du Roy, et Garde des Plans et Tableaux de Sa Majesté").⁴

There are two related drawings for the figures of the mother and child seen in the foreground:  one in black chalk, with differences to the costume of the mother; and another, in the opposite direction, in red chalk.⁵ The red chalk drawing (fig. 2), now in the National Museum, Stockholm (Inv. no. 2937/1863), is closer in composition, showing the exact same costume for the mother with her over-skirt bunched up on both hips, and the position of the baby’s arm and his hand with finger pointing downwards.

Alastair Laing, who is currently working on a catalogue raisonné of Boucher’s paintings, has recently seen this painting firsthand.  He and his collaborator, Jamie Mulherron (who has seen only an image), are hesitant to give to this painting a full endorsement to the artist, considering it to be a work they would categorize as “Attributed to Boucher.”  This is due to the handling of paint, particularly in the foliage, which they find uncharacteristic, and to the depiction of the mill with two wheels, which is unlike any of Boucher’s other representations of it .

1.  See Nicolas Vleughels, The Mill at Quiquengrogne, dated 1721, drawing, New York, Morgan Library; Nicolas Lancret, Le Moulin de Quiquengrogne, in G. Wildenstein, Lancret, Paris 1924, p. 74, cat. no. 41, engraving by E. Cousinet  reproduced fig. 27.
2.  The painting of the Mill at Charenton thought to be the painting on which Le Bas's engraving was based, listed in Ananoff cat. no. 167 and included in the sale catalogue, London, Sotheby’s, 5 July 2005 lot 14, was not accepted as autograph by Alastair Laing and was withdrawn from the sale.
3.  See A. Laing, under Literature, 1986, p. 280.
4.  A. Laing, private communication dated 28 September 2015.
5.  See Ananoff, Boucher Drawings, vol. I, nos. 66 and 65 respectively.