Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762)

Abstract

The Louvre Museum retains a very important collection of drawings (1038 sheets) attributed to Edme Bouchardon, whose summary catalog was published by Jean Guiffrey and Pierre Marcel in 1907 and 1908 entitled General Inventory of Drawings of the Louvre and Versailles Museum. The last monographic study on the artist dates from 1910 (Alphonse Roserot). The inventory of Bouchardon's drawings is organized chronologically, presenting the sheets in the order of their realization, and thematically. It is divided into three parts, corresponding to the three essential stages of the career of Bouchardon: Rome (1723-1732), which essentially consists of copies of antiques, paintings and sculptures, executed by the artist during his stay at The Académie de France; Paris (1733-1748), which brings together the drawings for the sculptures that made Bouchardon famous, especially the l'Amour taillant son arc dans la massue d'Hercule and the Grenelle fountain; and the equestrian statue of Louis XV (1748-1762), a colossal construction site which occupied the entire end of the sculptor's career and for which the Louvre collection amounts to nearly 440 drawings. Each part and then each theme are introduced by a short presentation text. Most notices are also commented with the identification of the copied model or the sculpture prepared, presenting the related works, the engravings engraved according to the drawing. The material study of the drawings was the subject of great attention, with a systematic survey of the watermarks, allowing a new and fine chronological study of the drawings. Finally, the work is supplemented by a general presentation of the artist, a chronology, and an index, to which is added a chapter dedicated to the rejected drawings for which new attributions are sometimes proposed.