AUBUSSON, after drawings by François BOUCHER (1703-1770) and - Lot 107

AUBUSSON, after drawings by François BOUCHER (1703-1770) and Jean-Joseph DUMONS (1687-1779) La Bergère à la houlette Fragment of a polychrome wool and silk tapestry decorated with Chinese figures in a landscape, a shepherdess in a feathered hat tending her flock next to a flute player. Last third of the 18th century, 202 x 152 cm (Restorations, missing border). This tapestry comes from La Tenture chinoise, a series of drawings by François Boucher presented in 1742 at the Salon du Louvre, then translated by Jean-Joseph Dumons into cartoons for the Atelier royal de tapisserie de Beauvais, where the hanging was woven in at least ten suites between 1743 and 1775. The model was later used in Aubusson. François Boucher drew inspiration for his designs from Chinese objects, particularly export porcelain, and was one of the precursors of the Chinese style in the 1740s. In 1731, Jean-Joseph Dumons was appointed painter to the Manufacture d'Aubusson by Louis XV, after an apprenticeship in François de Troy's workshop. Dumons translated and completed François Boucher's La Tenture chinoise, commissioned by Aubusson merchant-manufacturer Jean-François Picon. Provenance : Couturier Nicolay sale, March 12, 1974, Paris; Acquired in the previous sale by the current owner. Comparative bibliography: P.-F. Bertrand, "La Seconde " Tenture Chinoise " tissée à Beauvais et Aubusson", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, November 1990, pp. 173 - 184 ; C. Adelson, European Tapestry at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1994, pp. 322 - 342