In Boucher’s pastoral scenes, the harsh realities of peasant life were replaced with elegant attire and the idyllic romance popularized by theatrical pantomimes. These fanciful depictions inspired Marie Antoinette’s adoption of simple dress and manners at her pleasure dairy, a faux-rustic hamlet at the Château de Versailles. Despite the apparent simplicity of Boucher’s subjects, his compositions are intricately organized around intersecting diagonals. Highly admired at the Salon of 1753, this painting was part of a pair of overdoors integrated into the woodwork of Madame de Pompadour’s Château de Bellevue.
The Interrupted Sleep
Oil on canvas • 81.9 x 75.2 cm
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Francois Boucher