About This Artwork

François Boucher
French, 1703-1770

Academic Study of a Reclining Male Nude, c. 1750

Black chalk, with stumping and touches of red chalk, heightened with white chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper
356 x 448 mm
Inscribed on an eighteenth century mount, verso, in pen and brown ink: "fragile / à Madame (Verger)/ à Dèves / fragile"
Regenstein Endowment Fund, 2009.42

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Versailles, France, Musée Lambinet, "François Boucher dans les collections privées," October 12, 2004-January 9, 2005, pp. 106-107, cat. 48 (ill.), cat. by Françoise Joulie.

Publication History

Carter Foster, French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin, exh. cat. (Cleveland, 2001), p. 26, fig. 1.

Ownership History

Probably acquired directly from the artist by Jean-Claude Gaspard de Sireul (c. 1710/20–1781), rue Lévêque, Paris (“Le portefeuille de Mr Boucher"); probably sold, Paris, December 3, 1781, no. 219; possibly Mr. Payant [a dealer who purchased several drawings from this sale]. Mme Verger, Dèves Chateau, near Avignon [inscription in pen and brown ink, verso of frame]. Private collection, Avignon, c. 1920–80; given to her nephew, Comte de Chambure, Aix-en-Provence, France, from c. 1985; sold Paris, Hôtel Drouot, October 10, 2000 (as French School, 18th century; no cat.) to Michel Gierzod, Nantes, France, to 2008.