Academic Study of a Reclining Male Nude

Prints and Drawings

c. 1750

François Boucher
French, 1703-1770

As an influential professor at the Royal Academy, Boucher taught life drawing. A savvy businessman, he realized the potential of producing etchings after his studies from life so that there might be instruction in provincial centers as well. This drawing—a dazzling demonstration of his technique of comingling red, black, and white chalks—was one of those reproduced.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: François Boucher
Title: Academic Study of a Reclining Male Nude
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1745–1755
Medium: Black chalk, with stumping and touches of red chalk, heightened with white chalk, on cream laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed on an eighteenth century mount, verso, in pen and brown ink: "fragile / à Madame (Verger)/ à Dèves / fragile"
Dimensions: 35.6 × 44.8 cm (14 1/16 × 17 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Regenstein Endowment Fund
Reference Number: 2009.42
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/196175/manifest.json

Carter Foster, French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin, exh. cat. (Cleveland, 2001), p. 26, fig. 1.
Alexandre Ananoff, L’oeuvre dessiné de François Boucher (1703-1770), vol. I (Paris: F. de Nobele, Librairie, 1966), fig. 98, 528 (ill.).

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.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Master Drawings Unveiled: 25 Years of Major Acquisitions,” August 27, 2016–January 29, 2017, no cat.

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.

Fagan 98

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.