The Favourite or the Elder Sister
Charcoal with white heightening on grey paper. Signed lower right 'L. Boilly'.
354 x 297 mm.
(13 9/10 x 11 7/10 inches)
Provenance: Perhaps, according to Henry Harisse, the Serrur sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 15th January, 1866, lot 150; collection Vigna; Galerie Brame, Paris, 1923; Galerie Jacques Seligmann, Paris, 1926; collection Fernand Javal, Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1952; private collection, France.
Literature: Henry Harisse, Louis-Léopold Boilly, Peintre, Dessinateur et Lithographe (1761-1845), Paris, 1898, p.177, no.1090; Exposition L. Boilly, Hôtel de Sagan, Paris, 1930, p.38, no.108; Catalogue de l'exposition Cailleux, Le dessin français de Watteau à Prud'hon, Paris, 1951, no.2. The drawing is to be included in the catalogue raisonné of Louis-Léopold Boilly being prepared by Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber.
Exhibitions: Louis Boilly, Hôtel de Sagan, Paris, 1930, no. 108; Le dessin français de Watteau à Prud'hon, Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1951, no.2.
La Bassée 1761 ~ 1845 Paris
Louis-Léopold Boilly was a major painter of genre subjects during the French Revolution, Empire and Restoration. In a letter, the painter's son, Julien, emphasized that his father had worked in two manners.1 His first manner is evident in his work of the 1790s. It is characteristic of the eighteenth century in that it shows a strong preference for subjects that are sentimental, anecdotal, moralizing, gently erotic or various combinations of each. Basically, the artist followed the late eighteenth tradition of Jean-Baptiste Greuze and Jean-Honoré Fragonard by using the medium of genre to portray poignant emotional states or moral instruction. This appeal to sensibilité was a popular motive in French art and literature during the second half of the eighteenth century. Great importance was given to the emotions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. During the 1790s Boilly painted numerous pictures on the theme of love and family life in the urban middle and upper class.
Stylistically, our drawing is close in form and content to "The Return from the Walk" dated c.17962 and falls firmly into the category of Boilly's 'early manner'. It is preparatory for an oil painting in a 'landscape' format. The painting may be lost3 but a photograph shows the group of children in the same pose but with the addition of a child's toy cart lower left. The only other difference is the position of the group in relation to the stark architectural background. Boilly's precise technique, for instance in the drapery detail, is almost that of a miniaturist. His general approach also brings to mind Dutch 17th century genre painters such as Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch. Boilly owned an important collection of their work which was sold in Paris in 1824.4
1. Richard Cork, David Bomberg, New Haven and London, 1987, p.139.
2. R. Cork, op.cit.,pp.112122, Pl. 148 & coloured Pl. C17.
