NARRATOR:
During the Napoleonic era, scenes of every day life fascinated collectors and the public. Louis-Léopold Boilly’s two delightful images of Parisian society, called Interrupted Supper, are painted with as much sophistication and finesse as a miniature.
The first canvas depicts a young woman and her lover in a secret rendezvous. Her elderly protector is coming in the door, barely held at bay by her conspiring maid. In the canvas that follows, the old man angrily confronts his cheating mistress. As the women poke fun at him, the young paramour hides behind a wooden screen, cheeks still aglow from the amorous encounter. Toppled furniture and exaggerated features heighten the drama, revealing Boilly’s interest in caricature and the theater.
Boilly lavishes attention on the details of the scene, recalling the fashionable world of the Rococo, almost a century earlier. But the subject matter here -- a domestic drama played out in a bourgeois interior – looks back even further, to Dutch genre painting of the 1600s. The Dutch aesthetic is also evident in the meticulous brushwork and the painstaking depiction of fabrics and textures. Just look at the care the artist has taken to depict the woman’s lustrous silk gown… the man’s velvet suit… or the crisp table linens.
Interrupted Supper
late 18th century
Louis-Léopold Boilly (French, 1761-1845)
Not on View
The mildly erotic scenes of Louis-Léopold Boilly’s paintings are derived from the French painting tradition of sensibilité in which gestures and facial expressions convey a narrative. Their subjects moralize on themes of vice and virtue, ranging from the sweetness of young love to the indecency of promiscuity. These works were popular among collectors for their discreetly risqué humor and impressive technical handling.
Although these paintings appear to represent a pair, they do not depict a sequence of events. Close looking reveals that the interiors of the rooms—and indeed the young ladies themselves—differ between the scenes. The paintings’ similarities likely demonstrate Boilly’s production method, in which the artist rearranged a small cast of stock figures into seemingly endless variations. This reproducible formula must have helped Boilly meet the high demand for his works, judging by the popularity of the engravings made after them.
Details
- Artist Name: Louis-Léopold Boilly (French, 1761-1845)
- Title: Interrupted Supper
- Date: late 18th century
- Medium: Oil on canvas (one of a pair)
- Dimensions: 15 x 18 in. (38.1 x 45.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation, Gift of Mr. Norton Simon
- Accession Number: M.1967.23.2.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
4th Marquis of Hertford (1800-1870), purchased 1861/1863, by inheritance to;
Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), by inheritance to;
Lady Wallace (d. 1897), by inheritance to;
Sir John Murray-Scott (1843-1912, by inheritance to;
Victoria Sackville-West, Lady Sackville (1864-1936, wife of 3rd Baron S.), sold 1914 to;
[Jacques Seligmann, Paris].
[?]Mrs. George F. Baker.
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred (Lady Wallace) Löwenstein, Brussels and London; by 1930.
[E. Speelman, London; sold 21 December 1949 to];
[Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, stock nos. 0190 and 0191, sold 18 July 1951 to];
M. T. (Mrs. Richard) Warde, London (sale, London, Christie’s, 19 March 1965, lot 70, ill., as The Interrupted Supper).
[Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, stock nos. 7752 and 7753, as Le souper interrompu, sold 9 April 1967 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890), by inheritance to;
Lady Wallace (d. 1897), by inheritance to;
Sir John Murray-Scott (1843-1912, by inheritance to;
Victoria Sackville-West, Lady Sackville (1864-1936, wife of 3rd Baron S.), sold 1914 to;
[Jacques Seligmann, Paris].
[?]Mrs. George F. Baker.
Mr. and Mrs. Alfred (Lady Wallace) Löwenstein, Brussels and London; by 1930.
[E. Speelman, London; sold 21 December 1949 to];
[Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, stock nos. 0190 and 0191, sold 18 July 1951 to];
M. T. (Mrs. Richard) Warde, London (sale, London, Christie’s, 19 March 1965, lot 70, ill., as The Interrupted Supper).
[Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, stock nos. 7752 and 7753, as Le souper interrompu, sold 9 April 1967 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Exposition Louis Boilly
- Paris, Musée Carnavalet, 1930-05-31 to 1930-06-22
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum,1989, p. 113
- Illustrated London News, p. 995
- Ingamells, John, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures III, French before 1815, pp. 10, 383 Appendix III
- Portalis, Baron Roger; and Henri Béraldi, Les graveurs du dix-huitième siècle, p. 299
- The Burlington Magazine,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best,2010, cat. 265B p. 277
- ?Steadman, David W., Art Journal,
- Seligmann, G., Merchants of Art, 1880-1960: Eighty years of professional collecting, p. 269
- Rizzo, Tracey, A Certain Emancipation of Women,2004, cover
- Connaissance des arts, p. 119
- Harrisse, H., Louis Leopold Boilly: peinture, dessinateur et lithographe,nos. 48, and 554
- Seligmann, Jacques et fils, Exposition Louis Boilly,no. 39
- Wallace Collection catalogues: Pictures and drawings, p. 11
- Marmottan, Paul, Le peintre Louis Boilly (1761-1845), p. 24
- Thomas Agnew and Sons, Summer Exhibition of the Fine pictures by Old Masters,no. 5
- Siegfried, Susan L., The Art of Louis-:Léopold Boilly: Modern Life in Napoleonic France,figs. 9, 10 p. 7-8
- Mabille de Poncheville, Boilly, pp. 22, 171
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Foundation,no. 12
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