1747
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Are They Thinking about the Grape? (Pensent-ils au raisin?) is a 1747 oil by François Boucher, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
The painting shows a young couple feeding each other grapes. They are in a peaceful outdoor setting. This scene is based on a pantomime about a shepherd's love for a shepherdess, and the grapes suggest a romantic encounter. The artist used this theme to create a sense of playful intimacy. Look up François Boucher for more of his work on similar themes.
This painting is based on a 1745 pantomime about a young shepherd’s awakening love for a shepherdess. The couple feed each other grapes—a fruit associated with Bacchus, god of pleasure—suggesting that their encounter is not entirely chaste. François Boucher’s compositions on pastoral themes comprise his most influential contribution to 18th-century French art. These lush and playful fantasies of rustic life, designed primarily for the private enjoyment of wealthy financiers and aristocrats, had little to do with the social realities of rural labor during the period.
With the pendant Flageolet Player, probably Jean Baptiste Machault d’Arnouville (died 1794), contrôleur général des finances; by descent to Melchior, marquis de Vogüe, one of whose descendants married comte René de Rohan Chabot [proposed by Alistair Laing in connection with the history of the pendant, in a letter to Susan Wise, August 13, 1986 in curatorial file]. Comte René de Rohan Chabot, Paris; sold to Wildenstein, 1959 [telephone conversation of Ay-Wang Hsia with Susan Wise, May 4, 1982]; sold to the Art Institute, 1973.
Probably Paris, Salon, 1747, no. 33bis. as deux pastorales, aussi en forme ovale. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, La Douce France (Det ljuva Frankrike), 1964, no. 16. Art Institute of Chicago, François Boucher in North American Collections: 100 Drawings, 1973/1974, not in catalogue. Art Institute of Chicago, Selected Works of Eighteenth-Century French Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976, no. 9. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, François Boucher 1703-1770, February 17-Mary 4, 1986, no. 53; Detroit Institute of Arts, May 27-August 17, 1986; Paris, Galeries nationales du…
Read the full account in the museum source.
François Boucher was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style.
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