François Boucher

This grand and impressive study of an urn, the sole subject of this drawing, executed in red chalk, is a rare example of one of Boucher's preparatory designs for the decorative arts, probably intended for production in stone or terracotta.

Boucher's designs for the decorative arts are an important and significant part of the artist's work, however, up until Alicia M. Priore's article (published in 1996), regarding this aspect of Boucher's career, very little was known and this area largely unstudied.¹

Some of his earliest designs for vases, dating from 1734 to 1738, are known from a publication of engravings by A. Bouchet and G. Huquier, entitled Livre des Vases. It was also around the same moment that he published two folios on fountain designs.  These studies were all heavily influenced by Antique motifs, no doubt inspired by Boucher's time in Italy from 1728 to 1731.

Due to the extravagance of some of the designs, fantastical creations conjured by the artist, these were probably only executed in metal, one such example is a Drawing of a pot with entangled snakes and broken twigs at the foot, in the Tessin Collection, Nationalmuseum of Stockholm.²  The present design, less ornate and complex, is more likely to have been realised.

Alastair Laing, having seen a high resolution image of this drawing, has endorsed the attribution to François Boucher and has provided the current owner with pertinent information contained in this note.

1. A.M Priore, 'François Boucher's Designs for Vases and Mounts', Studies in the Decorative Arts, vol 3, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1996), pp. 2-51

2. François Boucher, Drawing for a pot entangled with snakes and broken twigs at the foot, probably in metalwork, Tessin Collection, Nationalmuseum Stockholm (Inv. NMH THC 2110)