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PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION

A YOUNG MOTHER WITH TWO CHILDREN AND A DOG ("LA JEUNE MÈRE")

A YOUNG MOTHER WITH TWO CHILDREN AND A DOG ("LA JEUNE MÈRE")

measurements note
34.5 by 24.5 cm; 13 5/8 by 9 5/8 in.

traces of a monogram lower left: F.B.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

In the collection of Boucher's son-in-law, the painter Pierre Antoine Baudoin (1723-1769), to whom possibly given by the artist;
His deceased sale, Paris, Remy, 15 February 1770, lot 22, for 24,1 livres ("Une femme, deux enfants et un chien dans un paysage");
(Possibly) Anonymous sale, Paris, Laneuville, 10 January 1853, lot 112 (according to Ananoff);
Anonymous sale, Paris, Falconnet, 15 March 1873, lot 5, for 1205 francs ("Elle est debout accoudée sur un entablement de pierre auprès d'une fontaine; elle regarde et surveille avec amour ses deux enfants qui jouent à ses côtés. Très jolie esquisse du maître");
Théodore Mélot collection, 1889;
André Weil, collection;
Anonymous sale, Lille, 25-26 November 1995, lot 333, where acquired by the present collector.

LITERATURE

A. Michel, "François Boucher", in Les Artistes célèbres, Paris 1889, p. 37, reproduced (as an engraving) on facing page (as in the collection of Théodore Mélot);
A. Michel, François Boucher, Paris 1906, no. 1205;
A. Ananoff, François Boucher, vol. II, Paris 1976, p. 254, cat. no. 612, reproduced fig. 1633 (as signed with monogram).

ENGRAVED:
By unknown artist (when the painting was in the collection of Théodore Mélot, 1889).

NOTE

Described as a "très jolie esquisse du maître" when it was sold in Paris at the end of the 19th century, this delightful sketch by François Boucher perfectly illustrates the artist's technical brilliance. His confidence and freedom in handling paint are vividly demonstrated here in the figure of the child lower left, whose form and pose are outlined with astonishing brevity; a few brushstrokes indicating his shoes, clothes and the crown of his head. The picture functions perfectly well as a work of art in its own right and it is not known whether it was painted in preparation for a larger, as yet untraced, picture. The fact that there is a signed drawing of this composition, almost identical in size to the present oil sketch and arguably worked up to a greater degree of finish, might indicate that both were used in preparation for a more "finished" picture (see Fig. 1).¹ Dated by Ananoff to 1765 this small painting may be compared to other oil sketches of a similar date; for example The Young Lovers, formerly with Newhouse Gallery in 1970, and Sleeping Venus and Cupid, formerly with Wildenstein, New York.² The contrapposto pose of the young mother is not dissimilar (albeit in reverse) to that of Venus in Boucher's signed and dated painting of 1762 of Venus being awarded for being the most beautiful formerly in the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Paris.³

The painting was formerly in the collection of Boucher's son-in-law, the painter Pierre Antoine Baudoin (1723-1769). It remained in his collection until his death in 1769, for it is included in his deceased sale the following year, and although it is not known when he received or acquired the work it seems likely that he may have been given it by the artist himself.⁴ Baudoin had been a pupil of Boucher's and on 8 April 1758 he married his daughter Marie-Émilie Boucher. Despite being an artist of some merit, Baudoin became notorious for painting risqué subjects which both shocked and intrigued his contemporaries. Diderot criticised his paintings as being immoral and the Baron de Grimm described his art as lascivious, considering it a bad influence on the youth of their time.⁵ Indeed Baudoin's paintings were withdrawn from both the 1763 and 1765 Salons as a result of their lewd content, after complaints by the archbishop of Paris. Baudoin's inventions were widely distributed through engravings and he enjoyed considerable popularity, despite being heavily criticised for the debauchery demonstrated in both his art and his private life.

1. 315 by 230 mm.; black chalk with heightening; formerly Pétridès collection, Paris.
2. Ananoff, see Literature, pp. 252-53, cat. nos. 610 and 611, reproduced figs. 1626 and 1629.
3. Ananoff, op. cit., p. 222, cat. no. 563, reproduced fig. 1533.
4. Baudoin is unlikely to have inherited it since Boucher died the year after him, in 1770.
5. "Baudoin s'est fait un petit genre lascif et malhonnête qui plaît fort à notre jeunesse libertine" (cited by M. Boucheny de Grandval, in E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, ed. Paris 1999, p. 873).