Boucher, Francis

, first painter to Louis XV. was born at Paris in 17u6, and was educated under Le Moine, after which he studied at Rome. On his return to Paris, he employed himself on every species of the art, but especially in the light and agreeable. His Infant Jesus sleeping, is finely coloured, and designed with a most flowing contour. The Shepherd asleep on the knees of his shepherdess, is a little landscape of singular merit. Many of his other landscapes are peculiarly happy. His other most noted pieces are pastorals for the manufacture of tapestry, at Beauvais; the muses in the king’s library; the four seasons, in the figure of infants, for the ceiling of the council-room at Fontainbleau; a hunt of tigers, &c. He was usually called the painter of the graces, and the Anacreon of painting; but his works did not justify these high encomiums, and seem to have rather sunk in the estimation of his countrymen. He died of premature old age in 1770. ²