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Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor
Artist:
François Boucher
(French, 1703-1770)
Date: ca. 1735
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
95 x 67 in. (241.3 x 170.2 cm)
Overall, Frame: 98 1/2 x 71 3/4 in. (250.2 x 182.2 cm)
Classification: European art
Credit Line: Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number: 71.504
Terms
- Landscape
- Animals
- People
- Vegetables
- Pastoral
- Romance
- Blue
- White
- Orange
- Green
- Brown
- Yellow
- Red
- Rococo
In Collection(s)
On view
DescriptionThis is a large oil on canvas painting. The colors of the palette are rich, bringing together elements of a landscape, still life and figure arrangement. The background is blue sky and clouds. A tree juts out into the center of the canvas forming the top of the pyramid arrangement of figures. A young boy and girl form the base of the pyramid, face each other blushing. He wears a red jacket as deep as his blush, she is pale in blue. Their clothes are the simple garments of a servant girl and trader. A third young girl leans over the donkey and looks down on the other two, resting her head on her hand. The donkey carries a large load in baskets, which includes slaughtered lambs. The foreground depicts a grouping of vegetables and copper pots.
Exhibition History"Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Portland Art Museum, Oregon, March 2 - April 15, 1956; Seattle Art Museum, Washington, April 27 - May 27, 1956; Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, June 12 - July 11, 1956; Los Angeles County Museum, California, July 26 - Aug. 26, 1956; Minneapolis Art Institute, Minnesota, Sept. 8 - Oct. 7, 1956; City Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, Oct. 19 - Nov. 18, 1956; William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City Missouri, Nov. 30, 1956 - Jan. 2, 1957; Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan, Jan. 18 - Feb. 17, 1957; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, March 7 - April 14, 1957. (Exh. cat. no. 65).
"The Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect," Baltimore Museum of Art, April 25 - June 14, 1959. (Exh. cat. no. 6).
"French Master of the Eighteenth Century," Finch College Museum of Art, New York, Feb. 27 - April 7, 1963. (Exh. cat. no. 22).
"Drawings by François Boucher," National Gallery, Washington D.C., Dec. 23, 1973 - March 7, 1974.
"Homage to the Louvre," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, May - Sept., 1976.
"Treasures from the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, June 12 - Sept. 5, 1977. (Exh. cat. no. 22).
"François Boucher," Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, April 24 - August 22, 1982. (Exh. cat. no. 6).
"French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, May 31 - Sept. 14, 1986; Birmingham Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 1986 - Jan. 18, 1987. (Exh. cat. no. 12).
"The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting," National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 6 - Sept. 7, 2003; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Oct. 12, 2003 - Jan. 11, 2004; Staatliche Museen of Berlin, Feb. 8 - May 9, 2004. (Exh. cat. no. 51).;
"The Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect," Baltimore Museum of Art, April 25 - June 14, 1959. (Exh. cat. no. 6).
"French Master of the Eighteenth Century," Finch College Museum of Art, New York, Feb. 27 - April 7, 1963. (Exh. cat. no. 22).
"Drawings by François Boucher," National Gallery, Washington D.C., Dec. 23, 1973 - March 7, 1974.
"Homage to the Louvre," Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, May - Sept., 1976.
"Treasures from the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville, June 12 - Sept. 5, 1977. (Exh. cat. no. 22).
"François Boucher," Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, April 24 - August 22, 1982. (Exh. cat. no. 6).
"French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, May 31 - Sept. 14, 1986; Birmingham Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 1986 - Jan. 18, 1987. (Exh. cat. no. 12).
"The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting," National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 6 - Sept. 7, 2003; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Oct. 12, 2003 - Jan. 11, 2004; Staatliche Museen of Berlin, Feb. 8 - May 9, 2004. (Exh. cat. no. 51).;
Label textFrançois Boucher
French, 1703–1770
Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor, ca. 1735
Oil on canvas
The subject here seems straightforward: a farm boy presents his produce to a kitchen maid, hoping to make a sale. Yet the scene is coded with symbols that chart a more arousing theme. Eighteenth-century viewers would have seen the parsnips the boy offers to the maid, the bound animals on his donkey, and even the eggs in the basket at left as emblems of lovemaking. This blushing encounter of boy and girl brims with sexual longing, their business exchange symbolizing something far more intense: the triumph of love.
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.504
French, 1703–1770
Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor, ca. 1735
Oil on canvas
The subject here seems straightforward: a farm boy presents his produce to a kitchen maid, hoping to make a sale. Yet the scene is coded with symbols that chart a more arousing theme. Eighteenth-century viewers would have seen the parsnips the boy offers to the maid, the bound animals on his donkey, and even the eggs in the basket at left as emblems of lovemaking. This blushing encounter of boy and girl brims with sexual longing, their business exchange symbolizing something far more intense: the triumph of love.
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.504
Published References
Bertina S. Manning. _Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.: An Exhibition Organized by the Portland Art Museum, Oregon_. Portland: Portland Art Association. 1956. No. 65. *See for further references
Notes by Robert L. Manning. _A Loan Exhibition of French Masters of the Eighteenth Century_. Finch College Museum of Art, New York, New York. 1963. No. 22. *See for further references
Chrysler Museum. "To Go on Loan: Boucher's 'The Vegetable Vendor'," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_. Vol. 2, no. 8. 10/1973.
Eric M. Zafran and Mario Amaya. _Treasures from the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr._. Tennessee Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville. 1977. No. 22. *See for further references.
Eric M. Zafran, reprinted from "Treasures from The Chrysler Museum at Norfolk and Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.". "Spotlight of the Month: Boucher," _Chrysler Museum Bulletin_. Vol. 10, no. 9. 09/1980.
Chrysler Museum. _Selections from the Permanent Collection: The Chrysler Museum_. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum of Art. 1982: p. 48.
Colin B. Bailey, editor. _The First Painters of the King: French Royal Taste from Louis XIV to the Revolution_. New York: Stair, Sainty, Matthiesen. 1985:p. 133, ill. #72a.
Pierre Rosenberg and Michel Hilaire. _Boucher: 60 Chefs-D'Oeuvre_. Fribourg (Suisse): Office du Livre. 1986: p. 19, no. 11.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum_. The Chrysler Museum. 1986: pp. 22-24; 106, ill. *See for further references.
Laura C. Lieberman. "Select Offerings: French Paintings from The Chrysler Museum," _Southern Accents_. Vol. 9, no. 6. 11/1986: pp. 46-50.
_Francois Boucher 1703-1770_, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York et al., 1986-1987, pp. 163-168, under no. 27.
Denys Sutton. "François Boucher: Painter of Grace and Pleasure," _Apollo_. Vol. 125, no. 300. 02/1987: pp. 92-101; p. 93, illustrated.
Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, 68-69, no. 51.
Colin B. Bailey, Philip Conisbee, and Thomas W. Gaehtgens, _The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting_, exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2003, 220-221.
Terry Ward Libby, _Masterpieces: A Celebration of Food and Art in Virginia_ (Richmond, VA: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2005), 33, 146. ISBN: 0-917046-79-X
Melissa Hyde, _Making Up the Rococo: François Boucher and His Critics_ (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006), 184-185.
Edited by Melissa Hyde and Mark Ledbury,_Rethinking Boucher_ (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006), 44,49-50,185 Pl. 6.
Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 20 det. & 35, fig. 28. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1
Provenance
Hôtel of the Duc de Richelieu, Paris, until 1852; sale, Paris, May 18, 1952 (no. 2); Baron de Rothschild; Alphonse de Rothschild, Paris, 1954; Robert Lebel, Paris, 1954; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum, 1971.
Catalogue EntryFrançois Boucher
French, 1703-1770
Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor, ca. 1735
Oil on canvas, 95" x 67" (241.3 x 170.2 cm)
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 71.504
Reference: _François Boucher 1703-1770_, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York et al., 1986-1987, pp. 163-168, under no. 27.
Love was the presiding theme of French rococo painting, and François Boucher, Louis XV's premier artist and quintessential exponent of mid-eighteenth-century French style, paid lavish homage to rococo romance in _pastorales_. In these bucolic genre scenes Boucher fashioned a rural paradise of perfect, unfettered love. It is an idyllic dreamworld in which comely young shepherdesses and peasant girls - improbably well-scrubbed and attired - are courted by their handsome swains under an eternally blue sky. Inspired in part by the idealized vision of rustic life found in pastoral poetry and contemporary theatrical productions, Boucher's _pastorales_ were a response to the escapist fantasies of the French aristocracy, who found in his peasant idylls a mental refuge from the pressures and formalities of life at court.
A masterful instance of Boucher's ravishing palette and buttery brushwork, the undated _Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor_ has been placed on the basis of style around 1735. This was shortly after the artist returned to Paris from his study trip to Italy (1728-31) and joined the Académie Royale (1734). It is an early work and among the first of Boucher's major _pastorales_. In it a farm boy displays his produce to a young female buyer -- a kitchen maid, perhaps -- while her bashful companion looks on. As in all of the artist's _pastorales_, the encounter here of peasant boy and girl brims with amorous intent; their ostensibly mercantile dealings surely symbolize the romantic exchange of hearts. Much of the painting's landscape imagery and the splendid array of vegetables, animals, buckets and jugs in the foreground recall the earlier pastoral paintings and prints of the Genoese Castiglione (no. 25), whose art exerted a formative influence on Boucher while he was in Italy.
As a companion to _The Vegetable Vendor_, Boucher painted _Pastorale: A Peasant Boy Fishing_, which is in the Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh. Scholars have recently argued that two other paintings by the artist, _Le bonheur au village_ and _Le halte à la fontaine_ (both Bayerische Landesbank, on loan to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich), were originally part of the same decorative ensemble and that together the four works constituted one of Boucher's first major painting commissions. That Boucher put special care into the design of _The Vegetable Vendor_ is attested to by the existence of two preparatory drawings, both executed in red chalk: a sketch of the girl who stands behind the donkey (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), and a sheet of studies for the farm boy proffering parsnips (formerly Michel-Levy collection, Paris).
Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, 68-69, no. 51.
French, 1703-1770
Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor, ca. 1735
Oil on canvas, 95" x 67" (241.3 x 170.2 cm)
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 71.504
Reference: _François Boucher 1703-1770_, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York et al., 1986-1987, pp. 163-168, under no. 27.
Love was the presiding theme of French rococo painting, and François Boucher, Louis XV's premier artist and quintessential exponent of mid-eighteenth-century French style, paid lavish homage to rococo romance in _pastorales_. In these bucolic genre scenes Boucher fashioned a rural paradise of perfect, unfettered love. It is an idyllic dreamworld in which comely young shepherdesses and peasant girls - improbably well-scrubbed and attired - are courted by their handsome swains under an eternally blue sky. Inspired in part by the idealized vision of rustic life found in pastoral poetry and contemporary theatrical productions, Boucher's _pastorales_ were a response to the escapist fantasies of the French aristocracy, who found in his peasant idylls a mental refuge from the pressures and formalities of life at court.
A masterful instance of Boucher's ravishing palette and buttery brushwork, the undated _Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor_ has been placed on the basis of style around 1735. This was shortly after the artist returned to Paris from his study trip to Italy (1728-31) and joined the Académie Royale (1734). It is an early work and among the first of Boucher's major _pastorales_. In it a farm boy displays his produce to a young female buyer -- a kitchen maid, perhaps -- while her bashful companion looks on. As in all of the artist's _pastorales_, the encounter here of peasant boy and girl brims with amorous intent; their ostensibly mercantile dealings surely symbolize the romantic exchange of hearts. Much of the painting's landscape imagery and the splendid array of vegetables, animals, buckets and jugs in the foreground recall the earlier pastoral paintings and prints of the Genoese Castiglione (no. 25), whose art exerted a formative influence on Boucher while he was in Italy.
As a companion to _The Vegetable Vendor_, Boucher painted _Pastorale: A Peasant Boy Fishing_, which is in the Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh. Scholars have recently argued that two other paintings by the artist, _Le bonheur au village_ and _Le halte à la fontaine_ (both Bayerische Landesbank, on loan to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich), were originally part of the same decorative ensemble and that together the four works constituted one of Boucher's first major painting commissions. That Boucher put special care into the design of _The Vegetable Vendor_ is attested to by the existence of two preparatory drawings, both executed in red chalk: a sketch of the girl who stands behind the donkey (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), and a sheet of studies for the farm boy proffering parsnips (formerly Michel-Levy collection, Paris).
Jefferson C. Harrison, _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, 68-69, no. 51.