François Boucher (Parigi 1703 – 1770) Entourage

Cupid Shooting His Arrow Circle of François Boucher (Paris 1703 – 1770) Oil on canvas, 48 x 40 cm with frame 58 x 49 cm. Full details of the work at https://www.antichitacastelbarco.it/it/prodotto/cupido-che-scocca-la-freccia The painting, of pleasing quality and typically eighteenth-century grace, depicts the small Cupid, God of Love, surrounded by vaporous clouds and intent on shooting one of his darts. The iconography, which originates in the cupids of classical antiquity, depicted as children armed with bows in the act of shooting their arrows, then became widespread in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, finding their full diffusion in the parameters of Rocaille taste. The delicate painting presented here is fully part of this production, plausibly part of a series or made as a charming love token. The painting echoes the numerous pictorial compositions conceived by the French Master François Boucher (Paris 1703-1770). The good quality of the painting could suggest its derivation from his workshop. Born and raised in Paris, he received his artistic training at the workshop of François Lemoyne. In 1727 he left for a study trip to Italy, staying in Rome at the French Academy and, for a short time, in Naples and Venice. In the peninsula he had the opportunity to know and study the Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, and especially Guercino and Correggio, his great points of inspiration, without neglecting naturally the Venetian masters, such as Veronese and Tiepolo. Around 1731 Boucher returned to Paris, where he quickly gained royal favor and the interest of private collectors, becoming a very prolific artist who would profoundly influence the new Rococo movement. In his works, there are finally stringent assonances with the works of Sebastiano Ricci, whom Boucher knew personally during his Venetian stay, tracing its style, characterized by rich decorative and luminous effects. The observer of this beautiful painting can easily identify with the figure that will be hit by the arrow and feels that dart as if it were in front of him, a sensation that the artist allows to experience through a daring frontal perspective. An inspiration for our artist, for this pictorial expedient, must certainly have been the Guercino with his famous 'Venus, Mars and Love' (Modena, Galleria Estense), commissioned by Duke Francesco d'Este. With a formidable invention, Gurcino portrays Cupid in the act of shooting the dart straight towards the viewer, following the indication of Venus, whose right hand is painted almost in trompe l'oeil. Whoever looks is thus called to identify himself in the client of the work. The painting is in excellent condition, professionally relined and complete with a lacquered and gilded wooden frame.