François BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770) - Lot 166

François BOUCHER (Paris 1703-1770) A Peasant Woman Going to Market with a Packed Donkey Black stone, shading and white chalk highlights, probably on old blue paper 39.5 x 25.8cm Formerly annotated at bottom "F Boucher". Insolate, pasted in full on the old mount Provenance: Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Ader-Picard-Tajan, March 22, 1991; no. 72, reproduced, with its counterpart below. Bibliography: Anne Leclair, Une vente secrète en 1765: la correspondance inédite entre Pierre Paul Louis Randon de Boisset (1709-1776) et le marquis de Voyer d'Argenson (1722-1782), in BSHAF, 2006, pp.151-169, repr. fig. 5a. Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, updated 29 November 2024, http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Boucher.pdf#search=%22J.173.628%22, under number J.173.7145 [accessed 29/11/2024]. Related work: Another pastel version at the Château de Pregny, lost during the war (ERR card no. BoR8 98, former Rothschild collection). A studio version considered by Alastair Laing to be a copy of our drawing (Ananoff, 1980, no. 620; former collection of Baron de Cypierre in 1845; last seen at Christie's, London, December 9, 1980, no. 166). Another copy on blue paper examined by Alastair Laing in 2003. We would like to thank Madame Démazure, who kindly confirmed the authenticity of this drawing after studying it in person. The above information comes from the Alastair Laing archives and the drawing will be included in the Laing-Démazure catalog raisonné currently in preparation. We would like to thank Mme Françoise Joulie who kindly confirmed the authenticity of these drawings from a photograph. In 1765, Randon de Boisset attempted to exchange two drawings by Boucher for two paintings by Mieris with Voyer d'Argenson, who refused the exchange. The two drawings were found in his sale on March 19, 1777 under lot 336: "two other pastel drawings; in one a woman holds the bridle of a donkey loaded with vegetables; in the other a woman unloads a donkey, a little girl holds her by her petticoat"; 14 inches 6 lines x 10 inches (i.e. 39 x 27 cm) (See Anne Leclair, opus cited supra, note 68, p.167). Although the drawings are indicated as being executed in pastel, it's not impossible that they correspond to ours, the expression sometimes also covering 18th-century drawings in white chalk. There is, however, a pastel version of the first composition in the Maurice de Rothschild collection, looted during the war and never recovered (see N. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellist, no. J.173.628, repr.).