François Boucher

François Boucher – On the path to art from his first steps

François Boucher was born in Paris on 29 September 1703. The son of the little-known decorative painter Nicolas Boucher, he had his fist tuition in his father’s studio. At the age of 17, he attracted the attention of the then very famous history painter François Lemoyne, who took him on as student. After only three months, Boucher left his teacher in favour of the engraver Jean-Boucher Cars, in whose workshop he furthered and refined his skill. Characterising influences on the young Boucher included in particular the art of the Italian master Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. The award of the Grand Prix de Rome, initiated by Ludwig XIV, should actually have paid for a four-year study period in Italy, but due to economic problems, the awarding body, the Académie royale de peintre et de sculpture, could only fulfil the award five years later.

Favourite at the court of the French King

Through his work for Jean-François Cars, François Boucher made the acquaintance of the publisher Jean de Julienne, for whom he created numerous prints and etchings, and in 1731, he was accepted at the Royal Academy of Arts with his painting Rinaldo and Armida. Boucher won the favouritism of Ludwig XV and his mistress especially, the influential Marquise de Pompadour, and was subsequently appointed fist court painter to the king (peintre du roi). A decade earlier, Boucher had already succeeded Jean-Baptiste Oudry as head of the manufactory royale de Tapisseries, and in 1761, he was also called to the position of Rector of the Royal Academy of Arts, where his pupils included Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. As the most influential artist of his time, François Boucher was considered a benchmark for French painting of the 18th century which he represented in a gallant and frivolous way, provoking the anger of the philosophers Denis Diderot and the encyclopaedists: As a court painter, Boucher painted monarchical France and veiled the reality, was the reproach. The students of Classicism also distanced themselves from Boucher’s understanding of art.

Boucher’s art became the symbol of an era

François Boucher was a hard worker and distinguished himself with his immense productivity, producing a comprehensive oeuvre of decorative art. He mastered numerous techniques, created landscape pictures, mythological and historical scenes and in particular nudes which impressed with their detail and liveliness. Even during his lifetime, his pictures were widely distributed, which steadily enhanced his fame. Boucher’s full figure portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour, in honour of her appointment as court lady to the king, is considered one of the painters best known works. He took inspiration for the development of his personal style from the art of Antoine Watteau and Pieter Paul Rubens, whilst he himself was considered a synonym for accomplished style and exquisite taste in the French Rococo period. German porcelains of the 18th century were also strongly influenced by Boucher’s work: Johann Joachim Kändler especially made direct use of motifs by the French Rococo master for the Meissen manufactory. 

François Boucher died on 30 May 1770 in his hometown of Paris.