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TITLE:
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Venus Restraining Cupid
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WORK DATE:
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1762
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CATEGORY:
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Paintings
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MATERIALS:
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Oil on canvas
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MARKINGS:
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Signed
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SIZE:
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h: 56 x w: 46.5 cm / h: 22 x w: 18.3 in
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REGION:
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French
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STYLE:
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Rococo (ca. 1710s-1750s)
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PRICE*:
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Contact Gallery for Price
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DESCRIPTION:
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In this composition Boucher echoes a theme that first drew him as a young student of Le Moyne and continued to attract him throughout his career. The pose first appears in reverse as the figure of Armida, in his Rinaldo and Armida of 1734 (Paris, Louvre), and again with minor variations in his Leda of 1742, the Venus disarming Cupid (part of a series of four grand decorations) of the same year, the Nymphs Bathing of 1746 painted for Queen Ulrike (now in the National Museum, Stockholm), and the great Venus and Vulcan (Paris Louvre) of 1756-57. This pose is also almost identical, but in reverse, to that in the famous three chalk drawing entitled Seated Nude holding an Arrow, originally in the collection of M. Babault and engraved in the same direction by J. F. Poletnich and in reverse by Etienne Fressard.
The theme of love was perfectly suited to Boucher whose pretty and delightful wife posed for him several times, although her face is never seen on the nudes that populate so many of his compositions. Venus and her wayward son, Cupid, appear over and over again in paintings, drawings, prints after his paintings, in small groups in biscuit porcelain after Boucher designs and tapestries after models produced by the artist for the Beauvais and Gobelins factories. Despite the many times he returned to this theme, here in this highly finished easel painting Boucher has succeeded in engaging the viewer with the freshness and delicacy of his touch and a sensuous but restrained eroticism that still excites today.
The extraordinary carved, gilded and silvered frame is a superb example of the 18th century frame maker’s art, almost certainly original to the painting. It was almost certainly put on the painting by the Duke of Zweibrücken (Deux Ponts), one of the most sophisticated collectors of contemporary French art.
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PROVENANCE:
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HH Christian, Duke of Zweibrücken, Duke of Bavaria and Count Palatine of the Rhine, sale, Paris, 6 April 1778, lot 78, “Vénus et l’amour; ce tableau peint en 1762 est aussi sur toile de forme ovale: hauteur 20 pouces 6 lignes, largeur 17 pouces” (sold for 580 livres); Anne-Pierre de Montesquiou, Marquis de Fezensac and Comte d’Artagnan, Lieutenant-General of the Army, Premier Baron of Armagnac (1739-1798), sale Paris, 9 Dec 1788, as “Vénus et Amour assis sur les nuages, on y voit le char de la déesse et d’autres accessoires aussi bien groupées qu’agréables. Toile. 20 x 16 pouces,” bt Le Brun 184 livres.
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