Meditating with Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845)

Meditating with Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845)

Swamps. Savage. Teevenin. Vandall. Wild son. Swamps. Fox. Valenciennes. Sand. Lethiers. Bartholomew. Vincent. Sauzay. Chenard. And finally Boilly himself. Of the sixteen small portraits created by the painter, fifteen are identifiable. And too bad for the sixteenth (the third in the third row), who will forever remain anonymous.

But there is no doubt that he is also part of this series of engraver and painter friends of Louis-Léopold Boilly who sketches them here with beautiful inner energy. In these fin de siècle years, which also mark the end of a regime, the painter, engraver and miniaturist originally from the North but living in Paris since 1785, will often give in to his heart’s content, in large colorful paintings, to describe the tumult of the streets of the capital. But here, the exercise is more formal. By posing, one next to the other, these surprisingly familiar faces – young and old, wearing wigs or already very bald, with their collars open or girded with a tie – the painter gives us back their common humanity, which can be guessed in their personal singularity.

The white highlights respond to each other, sometimes to highlight the reflection of a face, sometimes to emphasize the folds of a fabric or the flow of a hair. What remains is the genius of the line mastered in black pencil, in the manner of the Renaissance artists. There to sketch the volume of a garment. Here to take a look. Boilly did not much like the Revolution which too often enjoyed cutting off heads. He preferred to draw very lively faces that look at us and join us.

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