Did Boucher Sign All His Drawings

François Boucher

French artist

François Boucher, (born Sept. 29, 1703, Paris, France—died May 30, 1770, Paris), painter, engraver, and designer whose works are regarded as the perfect expression of French taste in the Rococo period.

Trained by his father, a lace designer, Boucher won the Prix de Rome in 1723. He was influenced past the works of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Peter Paul Rubens, and his instructor François Le Moyne. Boucher'due south first major committee was for engravings of 125 drawings by Antoine Watteau. After illustrating an edition of Molière's works, he drew cartoons of farmyard scenes and chinoiserie for the Beauvais tapestry factory.

Tate Modern extension Switch House, London, England. (Tavatnik, museums). Photo dated 2022.

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Boucher outset won fame with his sensuous and light-hearted mythological paintings and pastoral landscapes. He executed important decorative commissions for the queen at Versailles and for his friend and patron, Mme de Pompadour, at Versailles, Marly, and Bellevue. He became a member of the Royal University in 1734 and then became the chief producer of designs for the royal porcelain factories, equally well as director of the Gobelins tapestry factory. In 1765 he became manager of the Imperial Academy and held the title of first painter to King Louis 15.

During the 1740s and '50s Boucher's elegant and refined but playful fashion became the hallmark of the court of Louis 15. His piece of work was characterized by the use of delicate colours, gently modeled forms, facile technique, and calorie-free-hearted subject matter. Boucher is mostly acclaimed equally one of the great draftsmen of the 18th century, particularly in his treatment of the female nude.

Boucher, François: The Toilet of Venus — Boucher, François: *The Toilet of Venus*
*The Toilet of Venus*, oil on canvas by François Boucher, 1751; in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine art, New York Metropolis.
Photo by AlkaliSoaps. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, heritance of William K. Vanderbilt, 1920 (20.155.ix)

Although immensely successful, Boucher lost his artistic preeminence toward the end of his life; overproduction, poor translations of his paintings into tapestries, the growing sterility of his ain work, and the emergence of Neoclassicism caused him to lose favour, both with the public and with such leading art critics as Denis Diderot.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Virginia Gorlinski.