Works of Art & Furniture
December 12, 2025- Hôtel Drouot room 16.
AUCTIONEERS
Géraldine Jost-Badin & Brice Pescheteau-Badin
16, rue de la Grange-Batelière - 75009 Paris
bids@pescheteau-badin.com
www.pescheteau-badin.com
Assisted by Cabinet Turquin
Mr Stéphane PINTA
69, rue Sainte-Anne
75002 Paris
Tel: 01 47 03 48 78
stephane.pinta@turquin.fr
FRANÇOIS BOUCHER'S ONLY KNOWN STILL LIFE AT AUCTION
On December 12, 2025 at Drouot, the Pescheteau-Badin auction house will present a major discovery that will revolutionize our knowledge of François Boucher: Nature morte au vanneau huppé et au combattant varié, the only known still life by the artist. Appraised by Cabinet Turquin, the painting will be exhibited on December 11 and 12.
This previously unseen work, which has never been presented on the art market or at auction, reveals for the first time a totally unknown facet of the king's painter: his daily practice of still life painting, an exercise he carried out every morning for two hours, according to the testimony of his pupil Johann-Christian von Mannlich.
"A still life by François Boucher is an event in itself. Never exhibited on the market, unknown in catalogs raisonnés, this work reveals a little-known side of the painter's work and immediately enters the category of collector's items. Its freshness, subject and provenance all combine to make it a major discovery for lovers of 18th-century French painting. - Brice Pescheteau-Badin, auctioneer, Pescheteau-Badin
"This still life, the only one by François Boucher preserved to date, sheds new light on the painter's daily discipline. Far from the galant compositions for which he is celebrated, it reveals a precise eye, a dense brushstroke and a fascinating freedom of execution. It is a discreet but fundamental painting, silently redefining the contours of his oeuvre." - Stéphane Pinta, Cabinet Turquin.
A DISCOVERY THAT REVEALS FRANÇOIS BOUCHER'S DAILY LIFE
François Boucher probably produced many still lifes, now lost: we now discover that he painted or drew any object in front of him for two hours every morning, strictly applying what Oudry developed in his lecture entitled Manière d'étudier la couleur en comparant les objets entre eux, given at the Académie royale de Peinture et Sculpture in 1749. In his Memoirs, Boucher's pupil Johann-Christian von Mannlich gives a detailed description of this exercise, to which the artist submitted himself daily. This unique work, which has survived the test of time and is in an excellent state of preservation, is a moving testimony to the master's little-known practice.
A UNIQUE WORK IN THE PAINTER'S CORPUS
This still life is an important addition to François Boucher's body of work. It is a unique subject in the master's corpus. The mastery of brushstrokes and impastos, the beauty of the composition and the precision of execution, the use of black shaded with dark green, present all the characteristics of François Boucher's craft and should be dated around 1745, the artist's period of maturity. The influence of the Nordic masters of the 17th century, who had greatly inspired François Boucher ten years earlier, can be felt in some of his genre scenes, such as La Belle cuisinière, La Belle Villageoise and Le Retour du Marché.
OUDRY'S INFLUENCE AND THE ART OF HUNTING
These hunting-related still-life subjects immediately evoke Jean-Baptiste Oudry, the King's court painter. Oudry had a close relationship with the young François Boucher, twenty years his junior. Their fruitful collaboration at the Manufacture de Beauvais from 1736, and the beautiful still lifes Boucher included in his paintings from 1735, illustrate the exchanges between the two artists. Around this time, Boucher bought one of Oudry's canvases: Nature morte avec une perdrix et un lapin (Still life with a partridge and rabbit), now preserved at Drottningholm Castle in Sweden (inv. DRH 28). Comparing the two paintings, it is interesting to note the difference in process between the two painters. Oudry favors white and gray tones. He fears
the use of black pigments, a fear he alludes to in one of his speeches. Boucher, on the other hand, emancipated himself from this principle. He did not hesitate to use black to create deep contrasts.
The present painting testifies to the artist's mastery of this exercise, rarely represented in his work today, and also suggests that this kind of hunting trophy may have been commissioned by an amateur. Despite the simplicity of the subject, the artist's signature, discreetly affixed in full, seems to indicate a commission rather than a simple exercise.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
PUBLIC EXHIBITIONS IN PARIS (free admission)
- Venue: Hôtel Drouot, 9 rue Drouot, 75009 Paris
- December 11, 2025: 11am-8pm and - December 12, 2025: 11am-12am
