"The Gallant Pastor" after François Boucher, 19th century
This painting is a copy of the "Gallant Shepherd" painted by François Boucher for the audience room of Prince Hercule-Mériadec, Duke of Rohan, on the first floor of the Hôtel de Soubise. It represents a gallant scene in a landscape with ruins. The man is hanging a garland of flowers on a young shepherdess. At his feet rest his three sheep, as well as his hat, his cane and a bouquet of flowers. Hidden behind the ruins, a young boy is watching the scene. Gilded wood frame, decorated with friezes of small pearls and foliage.
The Gallant Shepherd, commissioned by the Duke of Rohan
In 1732, the Duke of Rohan, at the age of sixty, married for a second time and decided to mark the occasion by having Boffrand transform the hotel built by his father a generation earlier. Boffrand was to build a pavilion containing two superimposed oval salons, one for the prince, the other for the new princess, and to transform the adjacent apartments. The painted decoration of the princess' salon and the door tops of the other rooms were entrusted to the most prominent contemporary painters: Natoire, Boucher, Carle Van Loo, Restout and Trémolières. Boucher was commissioned to provide seven very different door tops: mythological scenes, pastorals and a landscape. He presented his first works at the Salon of 1738. The two door tops, the Gallant Shepherd and the Complaining Shepherd, were the great novelty of the ensemble painted by François Boucher for the Hôtel de Soubise and the engravings were to increase their influence. These two 18th century paintings are the first "pastorals" that have come down to us. The term "pastoral" here takes on the more restricted meaning it had in 18th century French painting, to designate idealized scenes of the sentimental life of shepherds and shepherdesses.
Bibliography: "François Boucher : 1703 - 1770", Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1987, p 176.
Size without frame: W:93cm, D:2,5cm, H:98cm
Size with frame: W:98cm, D:4cm, H:103cm
Circa: 1850
Dim: W: 98cm, D: 4cm, H: 103cm.
Dim: W: 38,6in, D: 1,6in, H: 40,6in.
Condition report : Good condition. Slight cracks to the oil. Wear to the gilding of the frame.
