The Fountain of Love
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Beauvais tapestry 'The Fountain of Love'
A group of young lovers are arranged around a stone fountain in the shade of a thick canopy of evergreen forest. The top of the fountain has three putti and a large pot from which water pours onto a shell basin held up by two standing putti, and from this the water then spills into the main basin. To the right of the fountain a young man with an open face, blond hair and blue eyes, and an intense expression, holds out a shell of water for a girl who has her back towards the viewer and who holds a sprig of flowers. The youth wears a light pink or lilac shirt with ruffled collar and cuffs. His companion wears a lilac dress with a red underskirt. She has a lace double-tier choker and blue bow in her hair. Between this pair and the two seated girls are three sheep and a basket of roses. The central pair of two girls holding a pigeon represent the principal action. The girl in the blue dress is seated probably on a step leading up to the fountain, she is bare footed and has her legs crossed. Her companion in a lilac dress leans against her and between them they tie a love letter round the neck of a pigeon. The far-away look in the eyes of girl in the blue dress suggests that the letter is from her and that the lilac girl is her helper, perhaps servant. Further to the left is another girl who is sitting, seemingly dozing. With one elbow resting on a rock she rests her head in her hand, but with her other she holds an alert looking spaniel on a blue ribbon leash (perhaps she is not so asleep). To her right lies her straw hat with a lilac band. Behind her a youth in a jerkin tickles her chin with a sheath of wheat. He has a slightly malevolent look on his face and while he tickles her chin, with his other hand he points in the direction of the fountain as if to draw the girl’s attention to goings on over there.
Probably woven for King Louis XV, this set of three celebrated tapestries derive from the ‘Noble Pastorale’ series, first woven at Beauvais in 1755, and are widely considered the culmination and high point of François Boucher’s (b.1703, d.1770) pastoral genre.
Boucher supplied the cartoons for ‘La Noble Pastorale’ series in 1754 and Beauvais began weaving in 1755. Parts of the original cartoons have survived in two paintings, now at the Getty Museum, dated 1748. Jean-Baptiste Oudry (b.1686, d.1755), Boucher’s friend and colleague, was Director at Beauvais at this time and the series was probably commissioned from Boucher by him. Oudry had designed a now largely forgotten series of pastorals called the ‘Amusements champêtres’ for Beauvais in 1728. A complete failure, this may well have prompted Oudry to commission designs from Boucher rather than design them himself.
‘La Noble pastorale’ was the last of six tapestry series’ designed by Boucher for Beauvais. It comprised five core weavings – ‘The Fountain of Love’, ‘The Flute Player’, ‘The Fisherboy’, ‘The Birdcatchers’ and ‘The Lunch Party’, of which Waddesdon has three. The most complete set of the series is at the Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino.
From the 1750s to the late 1770s, ‘La Noble Pastorale’ was a great success; Jules Badin notes that the series was woven 15 times between 1755 and 1778, including five sets for the king, Louis XV, and one for the royal wardrobe. Although Waddesdon’s weavings have lost their original borders, which might have carried the royal arms, only in sets made for the king do you find the same combination of subjects as those at Waddesdon. It is therefore likely that the Waddesdon tapestries come from one of the royal sets woven in 1758 (woven twice), 1762, 1769, 1774, or 1778.
Jamie Mulherron, 2018
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
3365 x 3469
Provenance
- Owned by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898) where illustrated in the 'Red Book', pre Nov 01 1987; inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922), 1898; inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957), 1922
Exhibition history
- Part of the accompanying trail to the exhibition: 'The Riches of the Earth" 2015-2018
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957
Related literature
- Alexandre Ananoff; Francois Boucher; vol. 2; Paris; La Bibliothèque des Arts; 1976
- Alexandre Ananoff; François Boucher; vol 1; Paris; La Bibliothèque des Arts; 1976
- Alexandre Ananoff; L'oeuvre dessinée de François Boucher (1703-1770); Paris; F.de Nobele; 1966
- M. Jules Badin; La Manufacture de Tapisseries de Beauvais, depuis ses origines jusqu'a nos jours; Paris; Societe de Propagation des Livres d'Art; 1909
- Jean-Luc Bordeaux, The Epitome of the Pastoral Genre in Boucher's Oeuvre: 'The Fountain of Love' and 'The Bird Catcher' from 'The Noble Pastoral', The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, 3, 1976, 75-101
- Jean Coural, Chantal Gastinel-Coural; Beauvais Manufacture nationale de Tapisserie; New York; Centre National des Arts Plastique; 1992
- Charissa Bremer-David; French Tapestries and Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum; Los Angeles; J. Paul Getty Museum; 1997
- Charissa Bremer-David; Tapestries in the Wernher Collection; CLV; May 2002
- Guy Delmarcel, Erik Duverger; Bruges et la tapisserie; Musée Gruuthuse and Musée Memling, Bruges, 8 July - 18 October 1987; Ville de Bruges and Editions De Poortere; 1987
- Elise Goodman, 'Les jeux innocents': French Rococo Birding and Fishing Scenes, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, 23, 1995, 251-267
- ♦; Alastair Laing; Francois Boucher 1703-1770; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 17 - May 4 1986; The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, May 27 - August 17 1986; Grand Palais, Paris, September 19 1986 - January 5, 1987; Paris; Réunion des musées nationaux; 1986
- Alastair Laing, Boucher et la pastorale peinte, Revue de l'Art, 73, 1986, 55-64
- Ellen Landau, A Fairytale Circumstance: the Influence of Stage Design on the Work of François Boucher, Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 70, 1983, 360-378
- Mark Ledbury; Sedaine, Greuze and the Boundaries of Genre; Oxford; Voltaire Foundation; 2000
- David Charlton, Mark Ledbury; Michel-Jean Sedaine (1719-1797) : theatre, opera and art; Aldershot; Ashgate Publishing; 2000
- Pierrette Jean-Richard; L'Oeuvre gravé de François Boucher dans la Collection Edmond de Rothschild; 1; Paris; Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux; 1978
- Edith Appleton Standen, 'Fêtes italiennes': Beauvais Tapestries after Boucher in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 12, 1977, 107-139; Regina Slatkin
- 7757
- Edith Appleton Standen, Some Notes on the Cartoons Used at he Gobelins and Beauvais Tapestry Manufactories in the Eighteenth Century, The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, 4, 1977, 25-28
- Edith Appleton Standen, The 'Amours de Dieux': A Series of Beauvais Tapestries after Boucher, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 19/20, 1984-1985, 63-84
- Edith Appleton Standen, The 'Fragments d'Opéra': A Series of Beauvais Tapestries after Boucher, Metropolitan Museum Journal, 21, 1986, 123-137
- Kathryn Hiesinger, The Sources of François Boucher's 'Psyche' Tapestries, Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, 72, 1976, 7-23
- Johan Huizinga; The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries; London; Penguin Group; 1924
- Adolfo Salvatore Cavallo; Medieval Tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York; Yale University Press; 1993