Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 24

Couple Landscape Man Woman Boucher Paint 18th Century Oil on canvas Old master

1730-1770

About the Item

Francois Boucher (Paris, 1703 - 1770) - workshop/circle - Pair of paintings The Surprised Lovers (Les amants surpris)/The Pleasant Lesson ('LAgréable Leçon) 18th century Oil on canvas 46 x 39 cm - Framed 71 x 61 cm We present this splendid pair of paintings, works by a French painter from the circle of Francois Boucher (Paris, 1703 - 1770), one of the most admired and successful artists in mid-18th century France, and depicting a riot of the canons of the Rococo period - the most delicate, light and at the same time elegant of styles - capable of interpreting the peculiarities of French society of the Ancien Régime in painting. Particularly well known for his idyllic, Arcadian, sensual and intimately amorous paintings, Boucher had the ability to delight French aristocrats thanks to the subtle ironic intent of his scenes. The two compositions, painted around the 18th century by an artist from his workshop, are part of a series dedicated to pastoral themes, depicting joyful children, always immersed in bucolic environments, engaged in romantic activities. Love, represented in all its lightness and as a hymn to joy, was always emphasised by erotic facets, and our paintings also contain symbols and allusions that would have been clearly understood and read by the spectators of the time. The first, ‘the pleasant lesson’, comes from a painting by François Boucher (1748; oil on canvas, 92x78 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in which a pair of young shepherds are immersed in an Arcadian environment; they are intent on watching over their flock of sheep, while the young man lets his companion play the flute, not without ambiguity, capturing the playful spirit much loved in the French court of the time. The detail of the ruined fountain is noteworthy, on whose pediment you can read the words ‘Fountain of Truth’, surmounted by a splendid stone lion with its head raised, image and icon of faith and strength. The second painting, ‘The Surprised Lovers’, is also based on a painting by François Boucher, now lost, but known from the famous engraving by René GAILLARD The painting shows the same amorous dynamics, capturing an intimate and romantic moment between a young couple of lovers, hidden in a wooded area among uncultivated grass, the perfect place for a secret rendezvous. The two lovers are embracing, and while the young man seems intent on whispering something sweet to her, they are interrupted by a farmer with a scythe in his hand and his dog, traditionally alluding to amorous skill, barking at their feet. Looking at the scenes, the overwhelming sensation is one of grace, emphasised by the graceful poses of the protagonists and the masterful use of the colour palette, where the colours are light and bright. Francois Boucher and his workshop dedicated a large part of their activity to this type of subject, the symbol par excellence of the frivolous pleasures of life to which the aristocratic class aspired, thanks to the great fame of the master and the copious requests from collectors. Our works are to be attributed to a pupil or an assistant of the painter. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The paintings are sold complete with 2 attractive gilded frames and are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and descriptive iconographic sheet. We take care of and organise the transport of the purchased works, both in Italy and abroad, through professional and insured carriers. It is also possible to see the paintings in the gallery in Riva del Garda, we will be happy to welcome you and show you our collection of works. Contact us, without obligation, for any additional information. Follow us on:
  • Creation Year:
    1730-1770
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 27.96 in (71 cm)Width: 24.02 in (61 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Circle Of:
    Francois Boucher (paris, 1703 - 1770)
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Riva del Garda, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU988116084702

More From This Seller

View All
Still-Life Flower Landscape Castelli Paint Oil on canvas Old master Italian art
By Giovanni Paolo Castelli detto Spadino
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
Still life in a landscape with fruit and game Work of the late Roman Baroque of the late seventeenth / eaarly eighteenth century attributable to Giovanni Paolo Castelli, known as Spadino (Rome, 1659 - 1730) oil on canvas 62 x 76 cm., Framed 90 x 109 cm. An open-air setting, with a hilly landscape gash that opens into the distance in the central part, surrounds our beautiful canvas, which showcases a rich selection of game and fruit, arranged in the foreground near the point of view of the observer, occupying a large part of the visual field with their bright and festive colors. The style and quality of the work, like the pictorial technique of this still life, characterized by subtle luminous vibrations and a lively chroma, make it attributable to the Roman Giovanni Paolo Castelli, known as Lo Spadino (Rome, 1659 - 1730), one of the most important specialists of this pictorial genre of late Baroque Rome, which had a very successful career between the 17th and 18th centuries. Analyzing the rich and heterogeneous catalog of the Roman master, in fact, our canvas can be included among his rare works which, alongside a selection of fruit - among which stand out large melons, ripe figs, dark grapes and plums - we see a game advert, presumably as requested by a patron who loves hunting. Next to various birds, spoils of a profitable hunting trip, there is also a small green woodpecker, with the characteristic red spot on the head, and a nice rodent that terminates from behind the trunk. The painter abandons himself to a skilful and brilliant chromatic texture of the surfaces, through a pictorial material rendered with exceptional vibration in its luminous and 'tactile' body, fully respecting the taste of the full Roman Baroque. The quality appears excellent, distinguished by a skilful and brilliant chromatic texture of the surfaces, which appear almost vibrant thanks to a skilful drafting of the pictorial material. Inevitable and evident are the Flemish suggestions, which had influenced the Roman Baroque still life, in particular the work of Abraham Brueghel...
Category

Late 17th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

Rotterdam Port See Italian Paint Oil on canvas 18th Century Old master Flemish
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
Pair of views of Rotterdam: The Stock Exchange building / View of the canal with the old port Eighteenth-century Vedutist painter oils on canvas 47 x 66 cm. - with frame 56 x 75 cm. This pleasant pair of paintings depict two glimpses of the city of Rotterdam, investigated here as vivid documentaries of the habits and customs from the public life of the wealthy Dutch port city, as well as one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company, is an excellent example of 18th century Vedutism We see, in particular, in the first work the monumental Palazzo della Borsa (defined as Il Beurs), designed by the architect Adriaen van der Werff in Westnieuwland, initially a place destined for legislation on trade, where merchant-bankers met periodically to exchange securities credit and enter into sales; it is located on the bank of the Nordblaak River and shot with the Gaapers Bridge in the foreground. The second work immortalizes the docking of the ancient port of Rotterdam, with the foreground view of the two city gates (the Wester Old Hoofdpoort on the left and the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort on the right); in the background on the left the St. Laurenskerk (Church of San Lorenzo), also called the Great Church of Rotterdam, is the only medieval structure, while on the right the English Church. Very well executed, characterized by a marked brightness and a chromatic range with bright colors and highlighted by the contrast between lights and shadows, our canvases are a very interesting testimony of eighteenth-century Rotterdam, portraying two of the views that have historically influenced a lot on economic history of the city. We can attribute the authorship to an author of the full eighteenth century, inspired by the pictorial style of the Italian landscape painters and whose iconography was presumably drawn from the numerous prints with perspective views made through the optical cameras. In particular, these views of Rotterdam draw their iconographic origin from a collection of perspective prints of the most influential European cities, made by the engraver Johann Balthasar Probst (1732-1801), characterized by a remarkable refinement in the line, at the service of a sense of perspective of undoubted value, and above all characterized by a strong Nordic taste. Descendant of a large family of Augsburg engravers, Probst contributed to making his workshop an important European publishing center between the 17th and 18th centuries, among the major German print publishers in the first half of the 18th century. Despite his travels, including in Italy, between Venice, Rome and Naples, not all the cities he portrayed were drawn from life but taken from earlier prints and drawings and filtered through northern European clichés. Many of these engravings have been lost and are now difficult to find on the antiques market.
Category

18th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

Saint Jerome Venetian School Paint Oil on canvas Old master 16/17th Century Art
By Jacopo Negretti, known as Palma the Younger (Venice 1544 - 1628)
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
Venetian school of the end of the 16th century Circle of Jacopo Negretti, known as Palma the Younger (Venice 1544 - 1628) Saint Jerome Penitent Oil painting on canvas 85 x 64 cm. - In frame 97 x 76 cm. This splendid painting, which offers us an intense representation of San Girolamo...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

Emperors Caesar Octavian Tiziano Paint Oil on canvas Old master 17/18th Century
By Tiziano Vecellio (Pieve di Cadore 1490 - Venice 1576)
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
Tiziano Vecellio (Pieve di Cadore 1490 - Venice 1576) follower of Portrait of the emperor Julius Caesar (Rome 100 BC - 44 BC), inscribed above C. IVLIVS. CAESAR Portrait of the Emperor Octavian Augustus (Rome 63 BC - 14 BC), inscribed on top OCTAVIANUS II ROM IMP 17th century oil painting on canvas Measurements (cm.): 65 x 50, with frame 81 x 68 cm. The Latin writer Suetonius with his work 'De vita Caesarum' (and in particular with his tradition in the vernacular of 1543, edited by the Florentine scholar Paolo del Rosso) inspired Tiziano Vecellio who, in 1537, painted for Duke Frederick II of Gonzaga portraits of the eleven emperors, adorning the walls for a small room in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, later known as the Cabinet of the Caesars. These effigies were intended to establish the link between the new era and classicism with its splendor, as well as to celebrate the value and wisdom of the rulers, who perceived themselves, in their lordships, as valiant new emperors. Titian's paintings soon became enormously popular and many patrons and lords of the time, including Ferdinando d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara and Governor of Milan or Vespasiano Gonzaga, turned to the workshop of the Cremonese Bernardino Campi...
Category

Late 17th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

Mismatched Couple 17th Century Paint Oli on canvas Old master Flemish School
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
17th century Flemish school The Mismatched Couple Oil on canvas 75 x 96 cm. Framed 96 x 118 cm. The curious subject we see depicted in the canvas proposed here belongs to the trad...
Category

17th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

Portrait Paint Oil on canvas Old master 16/17th Century Italian Raffaello Art
Located in Riva del Garda, IT
Tuscan painter active towards the end of the 16th century Portrait of Captain Niccolò Orsini (Pitigliano, 1442 - Lonigo, 1510), count of Pitigliano and Nola. Tuscany, end of the 16th century Oil on canvas, 64 x 47 cm., Framed 89 x 73 cm. The portrait we present to you shows the effigy of a vigorous high-ranking male figure in armor, in the most typical Renaissance pose, half-length and taken in profile, with his face and gaze turned to the side; the serious and intense expression and the facial features evoke at first glance the portraiture of early Florentine mannerism. He is Niccolò III Orsini (Pitigliano, 1442 - Lonigo, 1510), count of Pitigliano and Nola and son of Aldobrandino Orsini, famous leader and captain (or capitano di ventura) who lived between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, who served for the state Pontifical in Naples and Florence and above all for the Republic of Venice. Portraiture with these characters, which derives from ancient coinage, was used in the sixteenth century in the sequences of Portraits of Illustrious Men, both in painting and in sculpture. The profile portrait was in fact a genre reserved, according to the Renaissance tradition, for celebrations, presenting those characteristics of imperturbability typical of the military role covered. Our painting is a work created by an author active in Tuscany towards the end of the sixteenth century, adhering to those pictorial styles made famous by the portraitist Cristofano di Papi dell'Altissimo (1530-1605), a pupil of Bronzino and then of Pontormo, known for having created a collection of about 500 portraits of illustrious men, known as the 'Gioviana Series' (now in the Uffizi Gallery); and among these it is possible to identify one dedicated to Niccolò Orsini. Our painting is inspired, in particular, by a print taken from the collection of prints...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Paintings

Materials

Oil

You May Also Like

Sir Richard Sutton's foxhounds
By John Ferneley Senior
Located in Stoke, Hampshire
John Ferneley Snr (1782-1860 Melton Mowbray) Sir Richard Sutton's foxhounds signed J. Ferneley lower right Oil on canvas Canvas Size 16 1/8 x 20 1/2 in Framed Size 21 x 25 in Proven...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Animal Paintings

Materials

Oil

Nathaniel Hone, portrait of "flora" roman goddess, 18th century
By Nathaniel Hone the Elder
Located in York, GB
I have great pleasure in offering for sale this beautiful portrait, by Nathaniel Hone, the elder. 18th century. The painting is of Ann Anderson, wife...
Category

18th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings

Materials

Oil

Young Girl after Sir Thomas Lawrence, Regency portrait painting
Located in Brecon, Powys
Charming work in the Regency style, mid 19th Century after Sir Thomas Lawrence. High quality painting. Old Christie's Stencil to verso. Would grace any home, suitable for contempor...
Category

Mid-19th Century Old Masters Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Vanitas III - Still Life Painting of a Human Skull & Flowers, Oil on Aluminum
By Matthew Cook
Located in Chicago, IL
Inscription on back of drawing: Laughter is mad, and reckless mirth— What does she in this weary earth? Should Wealth, or Fame, Our life employ. Death comes, our labour to destroy; ...
Category

2010s Old Masters Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Acrylic

German School, Figure Study
Located in London, GB
German School, Figure Study, c.1890, Oil on canvas, 64cm x 39cm, (74cm x 50cm framed). The painting has been recently cleaned and is in a new period style frame. This wonderfully t...
Category

Early 1900s Old Masters Nude Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Dutch Windmill Original Oil in Dutch Impressionist Style
Located in Soquel, CA
Mid Century Dutch Windmill Original Oil in Dutch Impressionist Style Colorful French impressionist style oil painting by F. Simont (Dutch 19th/20t...
Category

1950s Old Masters Landscape Paintings

Materials

Linen, Oil, Stretcher Bars

Recently Viewed

View All