1822
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
The Movings is a 1822 oil by Louis-Léopold Boilly, a French Romanticism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
The painting shows a street scene with a carriage and a hearse. It's a busy scene with people moving. The artist is commenting on change in life, like moving homes or dying. The scene is set in Paris after the Revolution. People had to move often to find affordable homes. You can see similar uses of light and shadow in the technique of chiaroscuro.
This slickly painted street scene uses the housing crisis of post-Revolutionary Paris, which forced poor people to move frequently in search of affordable homes, as a metaphor for other “movings” in life, particularly the transition from life to death. At center, a carriage loaded with furniture transports a young woman with her baby while, to their right, a black hearse moves towards the ethereal Roman church in the distance. The artist crossing the scene, easel in hand, just behind the horse may allude to the transient nature of such work, which often included travel between Rome and Paris.
In the possession of Louis-Léopold Boilly; his sale, Paris, April 13–14, 1829, lot 4; sold to James-Alexandre, comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (died 1855), Paris [Harrisse 1898]; Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier Sale, Paris, March 21–April 4, 1865, lot 225; sold to Sauvage [see Hippolyte Mireur, Dictionnaire des ventes d'art faites en France et à l'étranger pendant les XVIIIme et XIXme siècles, Paris, 1911-1912]. Comtesse de Gramont d’Aster (1855–1905), Paris by 1898 [according to Harrisse 1898]. Pierre Thomas, comte de Pange (1875–1946), Paris. Private collection in U.S.A. [New York 1982]; Wildenstein…
Paris, Salon, Explication des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, architecture et gravure, des artistes vivans, exposés au Musée Royal des Arts, 1822, cat. 121. New York, Wildenstein Gallery, Consulat–Empire–Restauration: Art In Early XIX Century France, April 21–May 28, 1982, pp. 74–75 (ill.), 87–88. Ft. Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, The Art of Louis-Leopold Boilly: Modern Life in Napoleonic France, November 4, 1995–January 12, 1996; Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, February 4–April 28, 1996. Minneapolis, Institute of Art, Crossing the Channel: British and French Painting in the Age…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Louis-Léopold Boilly was a French painter and draftsman. A creator of popular portrait paintings, he also produced a vast number of genre paintings documenting French middle-class social life. His life and work spanned…
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