202   Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Startled Boy. Mid 1790's. 1790's.

Louis-Léopold Boilly 1761 La Bassée – 1845 Paris

Charcoal drawing, in parts hightened with white on bluish "Courtalin"-Paper (water mark bottom left margin, minimally ...
cut). Unsigned. Veneered 19th century frame. Verso with old adhesive labels (partly exhibition labels), one inscribed in German: "Revolutionary period / Image of a governess with child and macaque: chalk drawing very good".
Not in the catalogue raisonné Harrisse; the drawing will be added to the catalogue raisonné Bréton/Zuber.
We are grateful to Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber for their consultance.

Provenance: Collection of a great-granddaughter of Franz von Lenbach, formerly collection Franz von Lenbach (1836 Schrobenhausen - 1904 München).

Paper: In 1772 the wallpaper manufacturer Jean-Baptiste Réveillon (1725 Paris - 1811 Paris) bought a paper mill in Courtalin-en-Brie (Seine et Marne) where he was able to produce high-quality vellum as well as handmade paper, claiming to be the first to have manufactured such paper in France. Using chemical experiments he developed a new method for manufacturing vellum in 1782. Subsequently his paper mill and wallpaper manufactury were awarded the title "Manufacture Royale".

Louis-Léopold Boilly was the most important genre painter by the end of the 18th century and beginning 19th century. "The Startled Boy" was drawn in the 1790s, a time in which the artist had been a well established and successful genre painter in Paris. Boilly, whose long and impressive career outlasted politically instable and turbulent times, distinguished himself as an excellent chronicler of a changing society. His "Scènes galantes" and boudoirs scenes were exceedingly famous and were distributed widely in form of prints. Being increasingly oriented towards the private market and a newly established middle-class, Boilly created his niche for suggestive motifs. Intrigues and pitfalls of love-life became predominant subjects in his paintings. His success surely led to the admission to exhibit at the Paris Salon. From 1791 on non-members of the Royal Academy were given the opportunity to attend. Artists who gained admission awaited economic success as well as national and international recognition.
The present drawing is a vivid testimony of Boilly's artistic interest in relating erotic female depiction with the observer's look. The Wallace Collection in London exhibits the painting "The Dead Mouse" from the 1780s / 1790s, showing the same motif extended by narrative elements. Another version of the depicted scene in charcoal, reduced to the mother-child relationship, was sold by Sotheby's in 2006.
The observer intrudes into a very private setting in which a little boy emotionally embraces his exceptionally attractive mother whose elegant gown made from luxurious sateen emphasises her high rank in society. The macaque does not only serve as the cause for the child's fear but furthermore symbolizes lust, worldly cravings and underlines the erotic level of the motif. The artist leaves scope for interpretation and avoids any narrative link since the mother's facial, almost dreamy expression and look into the distance does not indicate any reaction to her son's fright. Susan Siegfried summarizes as follows: "Boilly's mothers and sons seem distracted by what they are doing, and the invitation is to read the distraction as an erotic one. Boilly was very far removed from all the moralizing about proper breastfeeding and connubial bliss that emanated from "progressive" Enlightenment views on motherhood and the family. He suggested, quite heretically for the respectable beliefs of the time which held that woman had to choose between their conjugal and maternal duties, that the man addressed by this painting could have it all - a wife as lover and a wife as mother."
cp. Siegfried, Susan L.: The Art of Louis-Léopold Boilly. Modern Life in Napoleonic France. New Haven, London, 1995. p. 171. > Read more

Paper overall inconspicuously wavy, minimal creases. Centred a horizontal crescent-shaped crimp fold (approx. 10 cm) from the manufacturing process. Recto paper discoloured, the blue tint faded. Top half of the paper with occasional mould stains, two dark. In the area of the outset of the skirt a very small hole with a scratch. Both top corners each with a pin hole, the margins in the upper third each with one nail hole. Bottom margin with water stains (max. 2 cm into the drawing). One very small, black stain bottom right. One further small water stain top right margin. Verso several small, brownish stains.

58,7 x 42,8 cm, Ra. 69,5 x 53 cm.