Lot 2504 Nα

The French painter Louis Leopold Boilly was blessed with a long artistic career in a highly eventful era. His life as a painter began under the later phase of Louis XVI's Absolutist rule, followed by the years of the Revolution, the French Empire under Napoleon, and the subsequent Restoration. Despite this, Boilly remained true to his own style and subjects throughout his career: intimate genre motifs drawn from French middle-class life. He drew his inspiration less from the French artists of the Ancienne Regime but more from the 17th century Netherlandish school, especially the works of Gabriel Metsu, Willem van Mieris and Gerard Ter Borch, whose precision he admired alongside their atmospheric intimacy.
The present work can presumably be identified with that entitled “Femme assise près d´un poele occupée à son Ménage” (M. Harrise: Louis Boilly, 1898, p. 77, no. 20) from 1798. A drawing by the artist can also be brought into connection with this work (Galerie Charpentier 1959, cf. M. Harrise, no. 967).

For this lot, special conditions are applicable (legend "D" according to the conditions of sale).