Louis-Leopold Boilly

by Annie Scottez-De Wambrechies, Florence Raymond, Louis Boilly (Painter)

Louis-Leopold Boilly (1761 - 1845) was a French painter. From 1789 to 1791 he carried out a series of commissions received from the Avignon collector Esprit-Claude-Francois Calvet. In this period, his manner is reminiscent of the sentimental style of Greuze and Fragonard, with a technique that gradually integrates with the precision, as already mentioned, of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, of whom he has a fine collection. In 1791, he exhibited his portraits, gallant and erotic themes for the first time at the Salon.Boilly's works of the nineties are mostly made up of gallant or sentimental scenes, for example, The visit, The improvised concert, The end of love, The jealousy of the old man (1790, London, Wallace Collection); Motherly advice (1791, Paris, private collection). These, like other works, combine the search for the anecdote so dear to Greuze with a marked insistence on the sensual representation of clothes and interiors, painted with a technique that owes much to artists such as Metsu and Terborch.In the immediate aftermath, he devoted himself to collective portraits, mainly dedicated to meetings of painters and sculptors, such the Atelier d'Isabey (1798, Paris, Louvre Museum), or the Atelier of a Young Artist (1800, Moscow, Puskin Museum), in which the accumulation of anecdotal or curious details produces a rather idealized vision of the artistic life of the time.After 1800, Boilly's compositions became even more complex and vivid, mostly concerning street life, cultured with spontaneity, humor, and refinement. He won the Gold Medal at the 1804 Salon, was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honour and in 1833 became a member of the Institute of France.His sons, Julien Léopold Boilly (1796-1874), Edouard Boilly (1799-1854), and Alphonse Léopold Boilly (1801-1867), were also painters, although less successful than his father.

287 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011