Lovers in a Park

François Boucher

1703 - 1770
Lovers in a Park, 1758
Oil on canvas, 91 1/2 x 76 3/4 in.

In Boucher's fairylike vision of a lush garden setting, a young couple and their spaniel have stopped to rest while out for a stroll. The man, who is weaving flowers into the hair of his lover, is distracted by the appearance of a milkmaid or shepherdess, who has been gathering flowers of her own. Any potential tension in the encounter is erased by the idealized quality of the scene.

The creamy folds of the seated woman's dress and the richly worked foliage of the surrounding bushes and trees epitomize Boucher's expression of rococo style.

This decorative style of art is associated with the reign of Louis XV. Boucher was also the favorite artist of the king's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, for whom he painted some of his most impressive works.

Provenance:

Baron Meyer Amschel de Rothschild, Mentmore Park, 1851 [1]
The earl of Rosebery, Mentmore Park, Bedfordshire, England, his sale, Sotheby’s, London, March 11, 1964, lot 53
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London
Acquired by the Putnam Foundation, 1965

Provenance Notes:

[1] Nothing is known of this painting before the mid-nineteenth century, when it was installed in the White Drawing Room at Mentmore Park. It was grouped with three other Bouchers now in the National Gallery of Scotland, which in the eighteenth century had belonged to the Maréchal de Sainscy. The Timken picture was not listed in the sale of Sainscy’s collection in 1789; thus its early provenance still awaits discovery. In the Mentmore catalogue (Mentmore [Edinburgh, 1883], p. 62), Lovers in a Park is listed simply as “Pastoral scene.”