Poppy Harvey-Jones
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Lot 77*
Louis-Léopold Boilly(La Bassée 1761-1845 Paris)La Jarretière
Amended
5 December 2018, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £118,750 inc. premium
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Louis-Léopold Boilly (La Bassée 1761-1845 Paris)
La Jarretière
signed 'boilly.' (on box, lower right)
oil on panel
27.6 x 21.9cm (10 7/8 x 8 5/8in).
signed 'boilly.' (on box, lower right)
oil on panel
27.6 x 21.9cm (10 7/8 x 8 5/8in).
Footnotes
Provenance
Comte Adolphe Thibaudeau, France, by whom offered
Sale, Laneuville–Delbergue, Paris, 13-14 March 1857, lot 19
The Collection of Richard Seymour-Conway (1800-1870), 4th Marquess of Hertford, 1861, by whom bequeathed to
Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), thence by descent to
Amelie-Julie-Charlotte, Lady Wallace (1819-1897), by whom bequeathed to
John-Edward-Arthur Murray-Scott, by whom bequeathed to
Victoria Sackville-West, 1912
With Galerie Jacques Seligmann & Fils, Paris (inv. no. 8463), circa 1914, by whom sold to
Charles W. Clark, New York, 1921 (85 000 francs), and thence by descent to the present owner
Exhibition
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, L'art du XVIIIe siècle, December 1883- January 1884, p. 5, cat. no. 3 (lent by Sir Richard Wallace)
Literature
Inventory of works removed from the Château Bagatelle, Paris, August 1871, no. 940 ('Boilly, femme se chaussant')
P. Robineau (notaire), inventaire après décès, 16 February 1912
H. Harrisse, L.-L. Boilly, peintre, dessinateur et lithographe: sa vie et son oeuvre (1761-1845): étude suivie d'une description de treize cent soixante tableaux, portraits, dessins et lithographies de cet artiste, Paris, 1898, no. 326, p. 112
J. Ingamells, The Wallace Collection. Catalogue of Pictures III. French before 1815, London, 1999, p. 384, no. 6
This work perfectly exhibits Boilly's delight in the tactile qualities of textiles, its miniaturist technique recalling such Dutch 17th century genre painters as Caspar Netscher, Gabriel Metsu and Gerard Terborch. Indeed, Boilly himself owned an important collection of their work which was sold in Paris, 13-14 April, 1824. It also shows the taste for moralizing, amorous and sentimental subjects which he inherited from Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, in which he sought the 'sensibilité' and 'émotion' dear to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot. The erotic nature of his Lovers and the Escaped Bird (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. RF1935) led to his being condemned by the Comité du Salut Public in 1794, at the height of the Terror at the instigation of his fellow artist, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Wicar, for painting subjects 'd'une obscénité révoltante pour les moeurs républicaine'. To refute these accusations Boilly painted the more patriotic Triumph of Marat in 1794 (Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. P395) but he generally had little interest in politics and the present exquisite subject represents what he truly delighted in and is what he remains valued for today.
From the inventory that was compiled following the death of the 4th Marquess of Hertford (fig. 1) we know that the present work was already in the Wallace Collection by 1871 when Sir Richard Wallace unexpectedly inherited his presumed father's dazzling collection of art, an act which was to change the direction of his own life and that of most of the masterpieces in his care. The Jarretière is known to have hung at the Château de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris (fig. 2), a property purchased by the 3rd Marquess of Hertford in 1835 from Henry, Count of Chambord and which housed the majority of the French paintings, sculptures and works of art in the family's collection. Sir Richard was also a prominent collector in his own right, adding extensively to the Collection in which Boilly was to become a particular favourite and records show that he was known to have gone on to own at least 15 works by the artist. A small exhibition on the remaining works by Boilly in the Wallace Collection is planned to take place at the museum in January 2019. A major international philanthropist and cultural luminary of his time, Sir Richard believed in sharing his inheritance with a wider audience. However, according to Ingamells's catalogue of the Wallace Collection, the present Boilly was never bequeathed to the nation, since it appears to have left the Collection as part of Lady Wallace's bequest to her residuary legatee, Sir John Murray.
The present painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the work of Louis-Léopold Boilly which is being prepared by Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber. It will be listed as cat. no.181 P.
Saleroom notices
Please note that the present lot is oil on card, laid down on the panel, quite possibly by the artist.
Additional information
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