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François Boucher’s Biography

Artist Biography,

Born: 1703, Paris, France
Died: May 30, 1770, Paris, France

Boucher was a son of a decoration and embroidery draftsman. He came to the graphic workshop of Laurent Cars by the age of nineteen, where he actively worked as an engraver on the publication of the graphic works of his contemporary Antoine Watteau. The four volumes of publication, which preserved the major pictures and drawings of the master, were the next layer on which Boucher’s artistic style was founded. Boucher’s father took his teenage son to the studio of the decorator Francois Lemoyne for apprenticeship, and he mastered the art of composition. Boucher was chosen in 1734 by Jean-Baptiste Oudry as designer for the tapestry works at Beauvais, and much later, in 1755, became director of the Gobelins tapestries. In 1723 Boucher won the Prix de Rome, he studied there from 1727 to 1731. After his return to France, he married Marie Anna Buseau in 1733. Their son, Juste, was an architect and decorator, his two daughters married his pupil, Deshays and Baudouin. Already having worked at Versailles in the Queen’s apartments in 1750, Boucher began to work for Madame de Pompadour, the Mistress to Louis XV. Under her patronage, he created indulgently luxurious works such as “The Toilet” and “The Bath of Venus” in 1751, as well as “The Rising” and “The Setting of the Sun” in 1752, which were considered masterpieces from the moment of their completion. He was appointed Premier Peintre du Roi (first painter to the king), and lived in Louvre after 1752. He was very productive in a variety of designs for tapestries, decorative boudoir panels, theater, book illustrations, porcelain, as well as his paintings. He is noted for his lighthearted depictions of classical divinities and pastoral, mythological scenes which embody the frivolity as well as the sensuousness of the rococo style.

Click here for Boucher’s paintings in our gallery.