Collection Online as of December 10, 2023
Andromeda (Andromède)
François Boucher
(French, 1703–1770)
Etching
Support: Antique laid paper
Sheet: 32.5 x 23.5 cm (12 13/16 x 9 1/4 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2016.7
Catalogue raisonné: Baudicour 42, state I/IV
Location
not on view
Description
Late in life Boucher became Louis XV’s premier painter, but he began his career working as an etcher, tasked with reproducing drawings by other artists. Boucher’s effortless etching style is a testament to his excellent draftsmanship, a skill that served him well not only as a painter but as a designer of tapestries, ceramic figurines, and other decorative goods. Here, in one of his own compositions, Boucher portrays the climax of the Greek myth when Perseus swoops in to rescue the princess Andromeda, who was chained to a rock cliff as a sacrifice to the sea monster Cetus.
François Boucher
French Rococo artist who epitomizes the frivolous and elegant court life of France in the mid-18th century. During his early career he was closely associated with Watteau, many of whose paintings he engraved. Boucher was a successful and incredibly prolific artistic who had a major impact on both fine and decorative art of the 18th century. He is particularly noted for having reinvented the genre of the pastoral, creating images of shepherds and shepherdesses as sentimental lovers that was taken up in a variety of medium. Boucher's sketchy manner of painting helped to promote painterliness as an end in itself. This trend dominated French painting until the emergence of Neoclassicism, when the tides of criticism turned against Boucher and his followers.