Description:

red chalk over black chalk
316 x 227 mm

Provenance:

Private Collection, France

Note:

A study for the right-hand figure in Les Fascheux, engraved by Laurent Cars for Œuvres de Molière, Paris, 1734, vol II, p.181. A group of eight preparatory drawings for the Molière are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

“if there is one single achievement that has secured Boucher an enduring reputation, and which elicits admiration even from his detractors, it is his illustrations to the edition of Molière’s ‘Works’ that was published by François-Antoine Jolly in 1734-35... Boucher’s surviving studies for the figures in these compositions have a verve and a spontaneity that he was never to surpass, and in which he had no equal in his time.”

Alastair Laing: "The Drawings of François Boucher", catalogue of the exhibition at the Frick Collection, New York, 2003, no. 13