GEMÄLDE ALTER MEISTER 18. SEPTEMBER 2026

110 3065 FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (1703 Paris 1770) Hurdy-Gurdy Player in a Landscape. Before 1740. Oil on canvas. Signed lower left: f. boucher. 49.1 × 38.3 cm. Provenance: - Art trade, Paris, 1846 (verso with label). - Collection of James Hughes Anderdon (1790–1879), London. - Auction Christie‘s London, 30–31 May 1879, lot 30 (verso with label) (as by F. Boucher). - Collection Durlacher. - Collection of Marion Bateman, Great Britain. - Auction Christie‘s London, 21 May 1971, lot 60 (as by F. Bou- cher). - Private collection. - Auction Bonhams London, 5 July 2017, lot 33 (as French School, 18th century). - Swiss private collection. Accompanied by a confirmation of the attribution by Alastair Laing, dated 8 October 2021, following examination of the ori- ginal, together with a detailed art-historical analysis by François Joulie, on which the present catalogue entry is based (August 2026). As François Boucher was not primarily a portrait painter, the re- latively few portraits he produced during his career are of parti- cular significance, reflecting the close relationship that existed between the artist and his sitters. The woman he portrayed most frequently was Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), whom he painted on nine occasions, becoming her foremost portraitist. The few men Boucher chose to depict likewise be- longed to his close circle. Among these are the pastel portrait of his friend Jean-Claude Gaspard de Sireul (c. 1713–1781) and the portrait of the violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762). The present painting depicts a musician wearing a silk robe with shimmering tones and fur trim. This type of elegant, loosely worn indoor attire was fashionable during parts of the eighteenth century. The blue neck ribbon, which since the reign of Louis XIV had served as a distinguishing feature of private portraiture, further reinforces the intimate character of the composition. In portraying the musician in such dress, Boucher looked back to his earliest portrait, that of Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), pain- ted more than a decade earlier, in 1724–1725. Around this time, Boucher produced a chalk portrait of Watteau to serve as the frontispiece for the second volume of the „Figures de différents caract res de paysages et d‘études“ (see, for example, Los An- geles County Museum of Art, inv. no. AC1992.276.2). As Watte- au had died only shortly before, Boucher based the likeness on the artist‘s self-portrait wearing a red dressing gown trimmed with the same fur at the collar and cuffs. As Alastair Laing has likewise noted, the present portrait of the hurdy-gurdy player is entirely autograph. The precision and sub- tlety of the brushwork, the freely handled details, such as the fo- liage on the right-hand side of the composition, and the sophisti- cated colour harmonies all attest to Boucher‘s hand. The painting belongs to the artist‘s early career, shortly after his return from Italy and before 1740. The richly ornamented hurdy-gurdy with its carved neck also provides an important clue to its dating, as this type of instrument was used in concert performance only bet- ween 1716 and 1741, after which it fell out of fashion. The figure, absorbed in song while accompanying himself on the hurdy-gurdy, immediately recalls the tenor Pierre de Jélyotte (1713–1767), who is known from portraits by Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694–1752), now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. no. MI 1049), and Louis Tocqué (1696–1772), in the Hermitage Muse- um, St Petersburg (inv. no. ГЭ-5638). Jélyotte first appeared on the Paris stage in 1733 and began his career with the Société du Ca- veau, of which Boucher was also a member. In April of that same year, Boucher married a musician from a family of royal violinists, and from this period onwards music and musical instruments assumed an increasingly important place in his work. Taken to- gether, these observations make the identification of the sitter as Jélyotte entirely plausible. A smaller version of the present portrait, likewise signed, is also known. The present painting was most probably executed after- wards from memory. The barely discernible underdrawing was therefore of less importance, as the motif was already familiar to the artist. The freely painted foliage along the right edge of the composition demonstrates a confident and spontaneous hand- ling of the brush that can only be attributed to the master himself. Autograph repetitions of this kind were generally produced by Boucher shortly after completion of the original commission. A particularly well-documented example is provided by the two ver- sions of Leda painted in 1742. The first, unsigned version, sho- wing numerous pentimenti, remains in a private collection. The second was painted for Count Tessin, the Swedish ambassador in Paris, and subsequently entered the Nationalmuseum, Stock- holm, where it is preserved today (inv. no. NM 771). Such second and third versions occur frequently in Boucher‘s early oeuvre and effectively exclude the involvement of a workshop, as he did not yet maintain his own studio at that date. This exceptionally charming painting must once have formed part of the collection of a discerning music lover, as is also suggested by its beautifully designed and entirely appropriate frame. CHF 100 000/150 000 (€ 108 700/163 040)