Jupiter and Callisto after François Boucher
China, produced for the European market, around 1770.
Glass panel painted on reverse in transparent pigments. Softwood frame gilded over chalk ground and red bole, H 42, W 52.5 cm.
A possible model for this work may have been the mezzotint by the Augsburg engraver Gabriel Bodenehr the Younger (1705 - 1792), which was reproduced as a mirror image in this reverse glass painting. François Boucher's (1703 - 1770) painting became known in Germany through the etching. Boucher's 1759 painting is now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Kansas City (obj. no. 32-29). There, too, the depiction is reversed, meaning that the nymph Callisto lies with her upper body leaning towards the right in the arms of Jupiter, who has approached her in the guise of the goddess Diana.
This lot contains the original print.
Provenance
Kunsthaus am Museum, Cologne 2003.
Literature
Illus. in Geyssant, Peintures sous verre. Eglomisés fixés et estampes sous verre de l'antiquité à nos jours, Paris 2008, p. 172.
Illus. in Steiner, Hinterglas und Kupferstich. Hinterglasgemälde und ihre Vorlagen 1550 - 1850, Munich 2004, p. 154 f.
Illus. in Steiner, Wollust und Grazie, in: Weltkunst, 3/2005, p. 70 ff.
Illus. in Audric, Chinese reverse glass painting 1720 – 1820, Lausanne 2020, p. 328.
Exhibitions
2005 - 2006 "Eleganz in Glanz", Barockmuseum Salzburg.
2008 Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg.