Harvest Allegory

Date

ca. 1740

Creator

When it came into the Museum’s collection in 1993, this drawing was attributed to François Boitard (ca. 1670–ca. 1715), Louis-Philippe’s father. A similar fan-shaped drawing by Louis- Philippe depicting putti making wine is in the collection of the British Museum; that piece is signed "Boitard 196" in the lower left corner and inscribed "3097" in graphite on the reverse. The Snite sheet is in keeping with the more frivolous subject matter and lighter touch associated with Louis-Philippe and his rococo contemporaries William Hogarth (1697–1764) and Hubert François Bourguignon Gravelot (1699–1773), rather than with the somber content and firm handling of his father’s generation. Louis-Philippe Boitard was an engraver and illustrator based in London, whose first prints can be dated to the mid-1730s. He is known to have worked with British artist Joseph Baudin (ca. 1691–1753), supplying him with fan designs such as the Snite example and the sheet in the British Museum—work that Baudin is recorded as having given up by 1742. from Snay, The Epic and the Intimate: French Drawings from the John D. Reilly Collection (Notre Dame, 2011)