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Lot 246: JEAN RAOUX (Montpellier 1677-1734 Paris)

Est: $60,000 USD - $80,000 USD
Christie'sNew York, NY, USOctober 26, 2001

Item Overview

Description

Portrait of Marie-Fran‡oise Boucher, full-length, as a Vestal Virgin, holding a bunch of lilies, a landscape beyond oil on canvas, laid down on plastic board 103 x 76 1/8 in. (261.6 x 193.3 cm.) NOTES The present lot is one of three apparently autograph versions of the composition known today: the first was destroyed in a fire in the nineteenth century, but is recorded as having been signed and dated 1728; the second belongs to the museum of the Chƒteau de Versailles (though it is currently on deposit at the Mus‚e des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) and is signed and dated 1733; the present version is neither signed nor dated, but is of a quality and manner of handling fully in keeping with that of the master himself. Marie-Fran‡oise Boucher was an important lady at court, wife of the king's secretary, who died a young bride; Raoux dresses her in bridal costume and posed in Vesta's temple, and casts her in this allegorical portrait as a modern virgin. The virgin servants of Vesta, the Roman household goddess and guardian of the hearth, were a favorite subject of Raoux that he depicted on numerous occasions (in various compositions in the museums of Lille, Braunschweig, Potsdam and Montpellier, among others); they were to be understood as (admittedly flirtatious) emblems of chastity.

Artist or Maker

Auction Details

ARTS OF FRANCE: PAINTINGS, FURNITURE, TAPESTRIES & PORCELAIN

by
Christie's
October 26, 2001, 12:00 AM EST

20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY, 10020, US