Watteau to Degas: French Drawings from the Frits Lugt Collection
October 6, 2009, through January 10, 2010
François Boucher (1703–1770)
Standing Woman Seen from Behind
c. 1742
Black, red, and white chalk, with stumping, on gray-brown paper
Standing Woman Seen from Behind relates to the figure of a young woman who attends her seated mistress in A Lady Fastening Her Garter (“La Toilette”), 1742, in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Strictly speaking, the Lugt drawing is not a preparatory study for the figure in the painting — there are too many variants between them — and may have served as an autonomous sheet, to be matted, framed, and displayed in the collector’s picture cabinet. The young woman is shown with her hips swaying to the left and wearing a sackback jacket, with double flounces from the elbow — the latest fashion in the early 1740s. |
