1st Edition
François Boucher and the Art of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century France
While earlier studies have focused predominantly on artist François Boucher’s artistic style and identity, this book presents the first full-length interdisciplinary study of Boucher’s prolific collection of around 13,500 objects including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, porcelain, shells, minerals, and other imported curios.
It discusses the types of objects he collected, the networks through which he acquired them, and their spectacular display in his custom-designed studio at the Louvre, where he lived and worked for nearly two decades. This book explores the role his collection played in the development of his art, his studio, his friendships, and the burgeoning market for luxury goods in mid-eighteenth-century France. In doing so, it sheds new light on the relationship between Boucher’s artistic and collecting practices, which attracted both praise and criticism from period observers.
The book will appeal to scholars working in art history, museum studies, and French history.
Introduction: In pursuit of pleasure Part 1: The artist as agent 1. Modernizing Watteau: Marketing luxury in France and Sweden 2. Boucher and the art of Conchyliomanie Part 2: The artist as collector 3. Trading places: Boucher as a collector of fine art 4. The business of collecting Part 3: The collector as artist 5. A new address: Boucher at the Louvre 6. Boucher’s cabinet of natural history 7. The artist inspired: Representing genius and the art of emulation
Biography
Jessica Priebe is a Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Australia.
"Priebe has built her book around two exceptional primary source accounts of visits to Boucher’s atelier and residence in the Louvre palace in the last decade of the artist’s life. ...Priebe recognized the inviting window these sources opened and designed her research to piece together a glimpse of aspects of Boucher that had previously been overlooked. Priebe gives us the first scholarly study
of Boucher as a collector of art and naturalia. In the process, she has also placed Boucher in a context different from the usual art historical compartment of royal academician and painter to France’s elite."--H-France
