Second half of the 18th century, follower of François Boucher, Odalisque

Second half of the 18th century, follower of François Boucher

Odalisque

Oil on canvas, 75 x 125 cm

With frame, 124 x 152 cm

In the 1737th century, French artist François Boucher did not depict women as Venuses of classical beauty, but as muses with provocative, erotic and unmistakable poses. A painter at the court of Louis XV and a favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour, François Boucher was both criticized and admired. Among the most famous works of the French master is certainly The Odalisque: lying on her stomach and with her legs open, the woman in Boucher's famous painting wears nothing but a delicate blue ribbon in her blond hair. Undaunted by her nudity, the woman rests on a chaise longue and her gaze is drawn to something that is outside the frame of the painting. The model for this very famous painting is said to be Marie-Louise O'Murphy, a young daughter of Irish immigrants born in 1751 who worked as a seamstress in Paris. After meeting Boucher in XNUMX, Marie-Louise was hired by the artist as a model. Later, she became the mistress of Louis XV. Boucher created two versions of this scene: one in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and the other in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne.

In 1752, Boucher painted Marie-Louise again, copying his own work with some modifications. This time he chose a darker palette and added an oriental incense burner in the lower left corner, instead of the open book. The artist responsible for our painting, certainly a follower of Boucher, combined different elements of the three versions of the Odalisque, creating an original composition that does not slavishly imitate the innovative models introduced by the master.

François Boucher was born in 1703 in Paris, the son of a designer with a passion for furniture and decorative arts. His artistic training was entrusted to the painter François Lemoyne, whose most notable works are the murals in the Château de Versailles. In 1723, Boucher received the Grand Prix de Rome from the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. During his life he spent four years studying in Italy, where he was inspired by the paintings of the late Renaissance Italian masters Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Upon his return to France, Boucher tackled all genres. He designed works for the Manufacture des Gobelins in Beauvais and the Manufacture de Porcelaine in Sèvres, was a decorator at the Opera and then director of the Royal Academy. Boucher's mastery undoubtedly lay in his ability to paint the human form and precious fabrics such as silk. In 1742, Boucher was appointed Premier peintre du Roi. He also received special support from the Marquise de Pompadour, who posed for him on several occasions. François Boucher became the most sought-after painter of the mid-XNUMXth century. His works caused a sensation in the art world not only in France, but throughout Europe.

François Boucher’s nude paintings certainly did not go unnoticed by his contemporaries. In 1761, Denis Diderot commented on the painter’s canvases with a mixture of admiration and disapproval: “What colors! What variety! What a wealth of objects and ideas! This man has everything except truth.” Later, the Goncourt brothers would summarize Boucher’s profile in these terms: “Elegant vulgarity, that is Boucher’s signature. […] To put it bluntly, and daring to use a slang term from the workshops that paints his talent a little harshly: he is a scoundrel.” His success was accompanied by strong criticism, including that of the realist painter Millet, who discovered his paintings in Parisian museums: "I even had a very pronounced repulsion for Boucher. I saw his science, his talent, but I could not understand his provocative subjects and see his sad women, without thinking how poor in nature all this was. Boucher does not paint naked women, but small undressed creatures: they are not the shapely exhibition of Titian's women, proud of their beauty to the point of flaunting it, to the point of showing themselves naked, so sure were they of their power."