Attributed To Louis-léopold Boilly (1761-1845) - Genre Scene Representing Maternal Love

Delicate period painting from the last quarter of the 18th century, representing a mother and her child in a rural landscape. Our picture crystallizes the change that is taking place in mentalities concerning the place of the mother and the conception of maternal love. Since the middle of the 18th century, there has been a global craze for everything related to “nature”. The Enlightenment philosophers breathe new life into the natural sciences and question the concepts of society and education. Jean-Jacques Rousseau develops in Émile, a reflection on the sensory experience of the child. The expressiveness of feelings that until then we had tried hard to hide, enters into this general movement. In society, in art as in literature, emotion occupies a major place. This very cultural construction of nature has consequences on the perception of maternal feeling, now considered “instinctive”. The mother and the love that attaches her to her child are glorified by society. We find in our painting the deep intimacy that unites the mother to her child. It reflects the discovery of gentleness, the blossoming of a maternal vocation, the popularization of caresses and kisses from mother to child. Here we see a mother tenderly hugging her baby boy in a rural setting. The tenderly entwined poses materialize the mother's double feeling of love and protection for the child. However, a certain staging shows through in the dialogue of looks established with the spectator as well as in the design of the decor. This pictorial snapshot captured during a walk seems to be idealized by a multitude of details. The presence of a fruit basket skilfully placed on a bas-relief as well as the company of a domestic animal that is certainly docile, convey a certain theatricality. This genre scene celebrating a family life, is characteristic of the works that Boilly painted after 1791, invoking a more moralizing artistic approach than his previous depictions. Our painting has been done with great care and gives great attention to attitudes and costumes, in a precise and delicate oil technique. The artist applied himself to affixing an almost miniaturistic mastery which sublimates the brilliance of the curtains, the suppleness of the flesh as well as the detail of the materials. The rendering of the fabrics, the mulching of the hat, the coat of the dog as well as the carved stone representing a cherub, are remarkably executed. The velvety colors contribute to a wonderful work of shadows and lights, impregnating our painting with a delicious iridescent atmosphere. Through its attention to detail, this composition is a valuable testimony to society at the time of the Revolution and the Directory. Our painting dates from the end of the 18th century, around 1795. It is attributed to Louis-Léopold Boilly and is presented in a posterior gilt frame, decorated with palmettes.

Oil on canvas (47 cm x 42 cm) and its frame (60 cm x 55 cm).

Literature Louis-Léopold Boilly was born about twenty kilometers from Lille in a modest environment. Raised in Douai, he learned to paint with Charles-Alexandre-Joseph Caullet until the age of seventeen. He then studied trompe-l'oeil painting in Arras with Dominique Doncre before settling in Paris in 1785. To live, he became a portrait painter. Between 1789 and 1791, he executed a series of commissions for the Avignon collector Esprit Calvet. His first style is reminiscent of the sentimental or moralizing style of Greuze and Fragonard in the 18th century, a genre to which he gradually incorporated the precision of the Dutch masters of the previous century, of whom he possessed an important collection. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1791 and became known as much for his portraits and trompe-l'oeil paintings as for his genre scenes with gallant or ribald themes. In 1794, he was denounced by the painter Jean-Baptiste Wicar, a Puritan revolutionary, and the Republican Society of the Arts threatened to have him prosecuted for obscenity by the Committee of Public Safety. In his defence, he invited the agents of the Committee to come to his studio and showed them a series of canvases on patriotic subjects, including a Triumph of Marat executed on the occasion of the year II competition organized by the revolutionary government. His meticulously observed and executed paintings reflect all the diversity of urban life, its costumes and its customs, between the revolutionary period and the Restoration. They were highly appreciated by the public at the Salon, who awarded him a gold medal in 1804. In 1823, Boilly produced a series of humorous lithographs entitled Les Grimaces. He was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor and became a member of the Institut de France in 1833. His work, which totals around 4,500 portraits (of which only the tenth has come down to us) and five hundred genre scenes, goes from fashion after the Restoration. It is especially appreciated today for its documentary interest. Boilly is certainly the only painter opposing revolutionary regimes, from the Terror to the Empire. He paints the life of small people and the greatest, peaceful; when the official painting praised the battles, the coronation ...

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