Description & Technical information

The painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonne of the works by Louis Léopold Boilly being prepared by Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber. The painting is in a period French 18th century frame, which bears the frame makers stamp on the reverse: Infroit

Inscribed on the reverse: au lieu de vers on voulait que le peintre mit simplement
L’hymen ote à l’amour son bandeau.
Danger des marriages d’amourette.
Inventé par M. de Calvet la Palun peint par Louis Boilly 1791 ou leçon d’un mère a sa fille [sic]

Between 1789 and 1791 Calvet de Lapalun commissioned eight paintings from Boilly.
Four of these are in the Musée Sandelin, Saint-Omer.

The present painting is the prime version of a composition treated by Boilly on at least two other occasions. One is in a private collection and the other is in the Musée des ArtsDécoratifs, Paris. The Arts Décoratif picture is en grisaille and forms part of a set of three grisailles, which include Le Cadeau Délicat and On La Tire Aujourd’hui.

Date:  1791
Period:  1750-1850, 18th century
Origin:  France
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signature: Bears the frame makers stamp on the reverse: Infroit.

Dimensions: 63.5 x 52.3 cm (25 x 20⁵/₈ inches)
Provenance: Commissioned by M. de Calvet de Lapalun directly from the artist in 1791;
Purchased from the above estate in Marseille in 1846 by
Mr. Chaix d’Est-Ange;
Mr. E. Du Bourg, comte de Bozas;
By whom sold, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, December 11, 1934,
lot 9 (along with its pendant, lot 10, L’Amant Constant), to Seymour-Weller;
Dorothy Dillon Eweson

Literature: H. Harrisse, Louis Boilly Peintre, Dessinateur et Lithographe (1761-1845), Paris 1898, p. 96, no. 143;
Baron Du Teil, “La collection Chaix d’Est-Ange”, in The Arts, Paris, July 1907, no. 67, p. 22;
P. Marmottan, Le peintre Louis Boilly, Paris 1924, no. 144;
J.S. Hallam, The Genre Work of Louis Léopold Boilly, Ph.D dissertation, University of Washington, 1979, p. 28;
M. Delafond, Louis Boilly 1761-1845, catalogue of the exhibition, Paris 1984, p. 26-27, under cat. no. 3;
A. Scottez-De Wanbrechiers and S. Laveissiere, Boilly, Un Grand Peintre Français de la Révolution à la Restauation, catalogue of the exhibition, Lille 1988, pp. 28-29, mentioned under cat. no. 6


Exhibitions: EXHIBITED: Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Retrospective Boilly, 1924, no. 144;
Paris, Ancien Hotel de Sagan, Exposition Boilly, 1930, no. 20


Categories: Paintings, Drawings & Prints