Artwork
Landscape near Beauvais
Landscape near Beauvais is an oil painting by the Rococo painting artist François Boucher. It dates from 1740 and is held in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.
About this work
Overview
François Boucher’s Landscape near Beauvais is an oil painting on canvas created in the 1740s. The work depicts a rural view of the area surrounding Beauvais, a town north of Paris, and bears the artist’s signature in the lower right corner. It is part of the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
Subject & Meaning
The composition presents a tranquil countryside scene, featuring a water mill and an old tower that frame the landscape. The inclusion of these architectural elements reflects Boucher’s interest in integrating pastoral settings with modest built structures, offering a glimpse of everyday life in mid‑eighteenth‑century France.
Technique & Style
Executed in oil, Boucher employs a palette of muted greens and blues to render the fields, sky, and water. The brushwork is smooth and refined, characteristic of his Rococo sensibility, while the careful rendering of light across the landscape conveys a serene atmosphere.
History & Provenance
The painting was listed in the Paris Salon catalogues of 1740 and 1743, described respectively as a landscape with a mill and as a landscape with a water mill.
The painting was listed in the Paris Salon catalogues of 1740 and 1743, described respectively as a landscape with a mill and as a landscape with a water mill. A companion canvas, portraying an old tower, was recorded as its pendant in the 1743 Salon. By the mid‑eighteenth century the work belonged to the Lenoir collection, later passing to the Olive collection in St Petersburg.
It entered the Hermitage in 1923, was transferred to Moscow’s Museum of Western Art in 1925, and returned to the Hermitage in 1930.
Legacy
A precise drawing replicating the left side of the painting is held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, indicating the work’s influence and the practice of copying masterworks for study during the period.
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Artist & collection
Artist
François Boucher was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style.
