Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/281

 influential friends, he was not sent to Rome. In 1727, however, he went to Italy at his own expense, in company with Carie van Loo, and reached Rome in the following year. He returned to Paris in 1731, and speedily gained an immense reputation in the operatic circles and gay society which he frequented. In 1734 he was admitted into the Academy upon his picture of ' Rinaldo and Ar- raida,' which is now in the Louvre. He was also attached to the tapestry manufactory at Beauvais, and upon the death of Oudry in 1755 became inspector at the Gobelins ; but this appointment he resigned in 1765, when he succeeded Carle van Loo as first painter to the king. His abilities naturally attracted the attention of Madame de Pompadour, for whom he painted, in 1753, the ' Four Seasons,' as well as the two fine pictures of ' Sunrise ' and 'Sunset,' which are in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace. He also decorated with idyllic and erotic subjects the boudoir at the Hotel de I'Arsenal in which Madame de Pompadour was wont to receive her royal lover. The decorations of this apartment were purchased some years ago by the late Marquess of Hertford, and are said to be most charming examples of the artist's style. Boucher likewise painted five or six times the por- trait of the all-powerful favourite, whose intimate friend and instructor in etching he became. The frontispiece of her ' Suite d'Estampes ' is from his pencil, and many of the plates bear traces of the master's hand. Boucher died of asthma at his resid- ence in the Louvre on the 30th of May, 1770, whilst sitting before an unfinished picture of ' Venus at her Toilet,' and was buried in the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois. He married, in 1733, Marie Jeanne Buzeau, a lady who painted miniatures which are now generally attributed to her husband, and who etched a plate of two peasants sleeping. His wife survived him, but the closing years of his life were clouded by the ill-success of his only son, who failed alike in painting and in architec- ture, and bj- the deaths of his favourite pupils and sons-in-law, Baudouin and Deshayes, to whom he w^as much attached. The extent and variety of Boucher's work is amazing. He himself calcu- lated that he had made no less than ten thousand drawings and sketches, and painted no less than a thousand pictures and studies. His pastoral sub- jects, after the manner of Watteau, are his best works. He painted but few portraits, yet that of Madame de Pompadour in the possession of M. Henri Didier is a masterpiece. Although highly esteemed in his own day, Boucher afterwards sank into undeserved oblivion, and it is only in recent years that the " Anacreon of Painting" has been re- stored to the place which is his due. Voluptuousness is the idea which pervades almost all his works, but there is also present a delicacy of colour and grace of style which atone for much that is amiss. There is in the 'N^crologe des Hommes c61^bres de France' for 1771 an able notice of Boucher, written by Antoine Bret, which is as free from the virulent criticism as it is from the extravagant praise alternately lavished by Diderot in his ' Salons ' on the "Painter of the Graces." Fuller information respecting the artist and his works may be found, by those who desire it, in M. Charles Blanc's ' His- toire des Peintres,' and in the monographs of MM. de Goncourt and M. Paul Mantz. The following works of Boucher are in the public galleries of Europe :

Angers. Museum. La Reunion des Arts. Edinburgh, dfat. Gall. Portrait of Madame de Pompa- dour. London. Wallace Twenty-one Pictures, including Gall. some of his finest works. Pari." Louvre. Binaldo and Armida. „ „ Diana leaving the Bath. » n Venus demanding of Vulcan arms for ^^ineas. M „ Pastoral Subjects ; four pictures. „ „ The Three Graces. „ „ Venus and Vulcan. 1, „ The Forge of Vulcan. " „ The Painter's Studio. " „ A Young Lady with a Muff. Petersburg. Hermitage. Tiie Eepose in Egypt. „ ,, Venus and Adonis. St^ockholm. Mitsciinu The Triumph of Galatea. „ „ The Birth of Venus. „ The Toilet of Venus. „ „ Leda and the Swan. „ „ La Marchande de Modes. Versailles. Trianon. Neptune and Amymone. As in everything else which he undertook, so in his etchings Boucher displayed the qualities of a master. Although but little more than outlines, they are executed with spirit, ease, and grace. Prosper de Baudicour, in the ' Peintre-Graveur continue,' enumerates 182 plates, of which about 44 are from his own designs. The following are the most important :

Figures de differents caracteres de paysages et d 'etudes dessinfes d'apres nature par Antoine Wattaau ; 104 plates, including a portrait of Watteau. La Troupe italienne ; after Watteau. Pomona ; after the same. La Coquette ; after the same. View of Viiiceimes ; after the same. Livre d'Etude d'apres les desseins originaux de Bloem- aert ; 12 plates. Les Petits Euveurs de Lait ; after himself. Le Dessinateur ; after himself. La Blanchisseuse ; after himself. Children playing ; after himself; 4 plates. Andromeda ; after hittiself; finished by Pierre Aveline. Innocence (Le petit Berger) ; after himself; finished by Aveline. Recueil de diverses Figures chinoises ; 10 plates. R. E. 0.

BOUCHER, Jean, was bom at Bourges about the year 1700. He was the elder brother of Frangois Boucher, and was also a painter, though of no great celebrity. He etched live plates, among which is the portrait of Antoine Watteau, the painter.

BOUCHER-DESNOYERS, Augustb Gaspard Louis, Baron, one of the most eminent of modern French engravers, was born in Paris on the 19th of December, 1779. His father held the ofiBce of commissary-general in the military household of Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII., but through unforeseen misfortunes young Desnoyers was com- pelled to choose for himself a career. Intending to enter the corps of engineers, he devoted to drawing every moment which he could spare from the study of mathematics. At the age of twelve he was introduced to Lethiere, who admitted him into his studio, where he soon attracted notice. But the rapid progress which he made in drawing was but the means by which he hoped to attain the end which he had in view. This desire was soon accomplished, for the engraver Darcis, who had seen a ' Head of a Magdalen ' which Desnoyers engraved on tin when scarcely ten years old, took him under his care, and employed him on the out- lines of the plates after Carle Vernet upon which he was then engaged. In 1796 an engraving in