The Art Connoisseurs

Louis - Leopold Boilly 1761 - 1845, was a French painter and draughtsman of portraits and genre subjects. His career spanned one of the most important eras of the French Revolution and Empire including the Napoleonic Empire and the Bourbon Restoration. He was a realistic painter of the lower and middle classes of France during the upheaval of the Revolution, he was born in Northern France and travelled to Paris at the height of the Revolutionary murder of the Aristocracy and the Royal Family. Boilly was on the list of subjects that were out of favour with the committee responsible for the reign of terror and but for his inspiration to paint the ' Triumph of Marat ' he would probably succumbed to the reign of terror as so many others. However he became a very popular artist of his time with his talent for producing subjects familiar to the public taste, he also was one of the first artists in Paris to manufacture prints of his paintings and this produced a high level of income for him. Boilly's prints were generally humorous as the depiction here of the Art Connoisseurs the subject displays a motley bunch of collectors / dealers examining a picture with an air of criticism and a show of communal exaggeration of the middle classes. This picture is a copy of the original and another earlier copy is held in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. The actual date of this print is unknown but it would probably date from the late 19th Century, the original dates from 1823-1827, it has at the production stage been hand coloured with watercolour. The picture has been part of my own collection for a few years and the labels on the reverse side were removed from the earlier frame and placed on the new back of the work maintaining continuity of interest with new owners. The previous price indicated on the reverse will date from a considerably earlier period and bears no relation to the current market numbers of valuation and rarity.