Louis-Léopold BOILLY (La Bassée, 1761 - Paris,... - Lot 198 - Ader

Lot 198
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80000 - 100000 EUR
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Result : 243 200EUR
Louis-Léopold BOILLY (La Bassée, 1761 - Paris,... - Lot 198 - Ader
Louis-Léopold BOILLY (La Bassée, 1761 - Paris, 1845) Young girl carrying her brother on her shoulders in a garden, around 1797-1799 Black stone, blur and white gouache highlights on buff paper. Signed in pen and brown ink in the lower left corner: "L Boilly". 47.3 x 33.9 cm [54.2 x 40.6 cm for the original mount]. Provenance: - Probably anonymous sale, Me Chariot, Paris, March 13, 1815, no. 12 (Young girl carrying a child, drawing with two pencils; the child is gesturing to play with a dog). - Anonymous sale, Me Morise, Paris, 11-12 November 1833, n° 2. - Former Lutz collection, 1889. - Galerie Brame, Paris, before 1923. - Former collection of Mr and Mrs Bory, Paris, around 1966. - Anonymous sale, Artcurial, Paris, Hôtel Dassault, 30 March 2011, n° 94, reproduced. Bibliography: - Probably H. Harisse, L.-L. Boilly, peintre, dessinateur et lithographe. Sa vie et son œuvre, 1761-1845, Paris, 1898, p. 170, n° 984. - P. Marmottan, Le Peintre Louis Boilly (1761-1845), Paris, 1913, p. 249. - T. Kernan, Nouvelles Réussites de la Décoration Française, l'interprétation moderne des styles traditionnels, Paris, 1966, p. 117, reproduced. - L.-A. Prat, Le Dessin français au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 2017, p. 475, n° 960. - E. Bréton, P. Zuber, Louis-Léopold Boilly 1761-1845, Le Peintre de la société parisienne de Louis XVI à Louis-Philippe, Paris, 2019, p. 558, cat. 375 D, reproduced. p. 443 and 559. Our drawing is preparatory to the painting La Petite Sœur, also known as La Bonne Sœur (see Bréton-Zuber, op. cit. no. 376P, p. 558, reproduced), painted around 1797-1799. Boilly is the cantor of daily life in the early 19th century. His numerous testimonies of family life make him the continuator of Greuze, without his moralizing side. Here an older sister is carrying her little brother affectionately on her shoulders in a park setting. At her feet, a dog waits for the child to throw a stick at it, while another is about to jump from the chair behind the group. The two children stare at the viewer, smiling, reminding us of the lost paradise of childhood.The refined use of blurring allows Boilly to render all the velvety drapery and roundness of the child's face, the chubby consistency of the flesh. The buff colored paper brings out the luminous accents of the white gouache, which sparkles like porcelain. The child perched on his sister's shoulders appears in a cloud of white gouache, standing out clearly in the light, like a child king.This is a rare example of white gouache combined with black pencil and blur. The polished and finished appearance suggests that the drawing may have been intended for engraving and distribution, although the project does not appear to have been completed. Our drawing is one of Boilly's masterpieces.
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