FRANÇOIS BOUCHER | A study of a male figure in draped clothing

Acquis par le collectionneur à Versailles, Hôtel des Ventes, M^e Martin, expert Alexandre Ananoff, 12 avril 1968, n°22

Rennes, 2012, n°60 (notice par Alastair Laing) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

Hinged at the upper margin. Overall in good condition. Light staining in the upper right corner of the sheet and some minor surface dirt. Otherwise image still strong and vibrant.
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This large scale and impressive sheet is a counterproof taken from a splendid red chalk drawing by François Boucher, the original of which is unknown. We are most grateful to Alastair Laing, who, from seeing the original, has confirmed that this sheet is in fact a counterproof and not a drawing, as it was described in the Rennes exhibition catalogue in 2012. Laing suggests the original drawing may have been a study for one of the figures that appears on the left of Boucher’s magnificent drawing, The Separation of Jacob and Laban, in the Louvre.¹ This connection is convincing as the figure does appear to share many nuances with the draped figure in the Louvre drawing, from the positioning of the feet to the outstretched hand and the formation of the drapery.

The Adrien sheet is both instructive and intriguing, both as a representative of an important method used by artists to replicate their images, occasionally for study purposes and often to produce multiple images for commercial purposes, and for its plausible connection with the early compositional drawing of Jacob and Laban in the Louvre.

^1. Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. RF 39011