Louis-Léopold Boilly

Louis-Léopold Boilly: Interior of a Café

The House Movers (1840)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: The House Movers

Another great scene from Boilly.

Politicians in the Tuileries Gardens (1832)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: Politicians in the Tuileries Gardens

Act of Courage of Monsieur Defontenay (1832)

Louis Léopold Boilly: Act of Courage of Monsieur Defontenay, 

Mayor of Rouen, 29th August 1792

Loge During a Day of Free Entertainment (1830)

Louis Léopold Boilly: Loge During a Day of Free Entertainment

He really seems to have done intensive study of facial expressions.

Distribution of Wine and Food (1822)

Louis Léopold Boilly: Distribution of Wine and Food

Another great scene by Boilly. The distribution of food and beverages to the public to mark special occasions was a tradition of the Ancien Régime. In 1806, the practice was restored by Napoleon when the 15th August became Saint Napoleon's Day. In the above scene of chaotic disorder, men and women are climbing all over each other to get their hands on something to drink. The central group is one great tangle of grasping limbs, as men clamber onto each other's backs to grab for the wine. Even the dogs in the foreground are fighting; neither will let go of a hat that's fallen off someone's head in the mad rush. [All Things Considered]

The Entrance to the Theatre de l'Ambigu-Comique (1819)

Louis Léopold Boilly: The Entrance to the Theatre de l'Ambigu-Comique before a Free Performance

As with all Boilly's works, there is a multitude of interesting detail to explore. The dogs are particularly interesting.

Men Arguing and Women Fighting (1818)

Here's an interesting and humorous pair of canvases by Louis-Léopold Boilly.

 Men Arguing

 

Women Fighting

The Geography Lesson (1812)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: The Geography Lesson 

(Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter) 

  
Atypically for Boilly - who liked painting large, boisterous crowds of people - this is an intimate father-daughter portrait.

The Entrance to the Turkish Garden Café (1812)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: The Entrance to the Turkish Garden Café

Crisply painted and teeming with detail, Boilly's picture transports us to Napoleonic Paris, where we stand on a shady boulevard outside the Jardin Turc (Turkish Garden Café), a popular establishment that offered its middle-class clientele pleasures formerly reserved for the aristocracy. Young and old, fashionable and not, Parisians gather here for an afternoon's leisure. Two young street performers entertain the crowd: one shows an elegant couple his tame marmot, while the other puts on a puppet show for children hardly younger than himself.

A resident of the Marais neighborhood, in which the scene takes place, Boilly included a self-portrait, in spectacles and a top hat, at the painting's rightmost edge.  [Getty Museum]

Scene de Cabaret

Louis-Léopold Boilly: Scene de Cabaret

Having finished the first decade of the 19th century, for the rest of this week I'll post some undated paintings, starting with this, another gem from Boilly.

The Public Viewing David’s "Coronation" at the Louvre (1810)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: The Public Viewing David’s "Coronation" at the Louvre

Another treasure from Boilly. I really like paintings of paintings - particularly when they place the artwork in a social context, as this one does.

Here the public views David's enormous painting of Napoleon crowning Empress Josephine, which was exhibited in the Louvre on three separate occasions in 1808–10. Its display was widely reported in the newspapers. A man in military garb reads the description to enable viewers to identify the various figures in David's picture, while Boilly scattered further portraits including his own, at far right, among the spectators. One of Boilly's most ambitious compositions, painted in 1810 it was exhibited at the Galerie Lebrun, Paris, in 1826, in the first posthumous retrospective of works by David and his school. [This is the Metropolitan Museum's gallery label for this painting.]

Here the public views David's enormous painting of Napoleon crowning Empress Josephine, which was exhibited in the Louvre on three separate occasions in 1808–10. Its display was widely reported in the newspapers. A man in military garb reads the description to enable viewers to identify the various figures in David's picture, while Boilly scattered further portraits including his own, at far right, among the spectators. One of Boilly's most ambitious compositions, painted in 1810 it was exhibited at the Galerie Lebrun, Paris, in 1826, in the first posthumous retrospective of works by David and his school. - See more at: http://www2.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/438099#sthash.CwNw4Nv2.dpuf

A Game of Billiards (1807)

Louis-Leopold Boilly: A Game of Billiards 

This brilliant painting encapsulates the era of social change in France after the Revolution of 1789, with its affirmation of new tastes and norms of behavior. During the period of the Directoire and the First Empire, billiard halls became like clubs to which people came not only to play the game but also to meet friends, to make new acquaintances, to gossip and flirt. Here tidbits of family and society news were exchanged, the latest political and social events were discussed.

The main character of the painting is a woman playing billiards, which testifies to the liberal manners of Napoleon I's age, since before that only men were fond of this game. Boilly's fine observation and presentation of characteristic figures of different ages and social groupings, as well as his skill in conveying light, space, details of the interior and costume, rank him among the greatest genre painters of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Boilly's fine observation and presentation of characteristic figures of different ages and social groupings, as well as his skill in conveying light, space, details of the interior and costume, have something in common with the genre paintings of Dutch artists. Yet the treatment of the subject is perfectly in keeping with the canons of Neoclassicism, with its theatrical grouping of figures, idealised faces, its emphasis on drawing rather colour and with its smooth and glossy paint surface.
[text adapted from here.]

The Card Sharp on the Boulevard (1806)

Louis-Leopold Boilly: The Card Sharp on the Boulevard

Here is another of Boilly's great genre scenes.  A great deal is going on in this picture, as in most of Boilly's canvases: the main figure of a huckster (the "card sharp") at the right spinning his web for a crowd of onlookers (no doubt seeking to separate them from their money), while at the left a prosperous looking gentleman is simultaneously propositioned by a prostitute and having his pocket picked by a young ne'er-do-well. Behind all of them are other people going about their business; a pastry shop is visible at rear left ("Patissier").

Jean Antoine Houdon (1804)

Louis Leopold Boilly: Jean-Antoine Houdon in His Studio

Here Boilly shows the Neoclassical sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon at work. He is known for his busts of famous people of the day; his subjects included Benjamin Franklin, Rousseau, Voltaire, Moliere, George Washington, Louis XVI and Napoleon. His sculptures found an interesting use as models for early U.S. postage stamps (example below).

Arrival of a Stagecoach (1803)

Louis-Léopold Boilly: The Arrival of a Stagecoach in the Courtyard of the Messageries

Boilly's painting here is a wonderful slice of life. People of all stations of life are shown "rubbing shoulders" in this scene set in the courtyard of the Messageries in Rue Montmartre (now Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires), which was "Grand Central Station" for stagecoach traffic in Paris in the early 1800s. The painting emphasizes the sentimentality of family feeling in the central group: a man (Boilly's friend, the painter Guillon-Lethière) kissing his wife, with other family members and perhaps servants as well gathered around.

More about this painting is at the Louvre web site.

The Painter's Studio (1800)

From Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) comes this depiction of a painter's studio.

Boilly was an accomplished painter of portraits and genre scenes. His work shows clear Neoclassic influences, but his subject matter was drawn more from middle-class daily life. His long career spanned the period from monarchy to Revolution to Napoleonic era and into the restored monarchy. He nearly lost his life in the Reign of Terror when his work was accused of being overly "erotic". The discovery in his home of a patriotic painting (Triumph of Marat, 1794, below) resulted in a reprieve - fortunately for us, as he went on to produce many wonderful paintings in subsequent years.