LOUIS - LEOPOLD BOILLY
La Bassee 1761 - Paris 1845
Although Boilly is today prized for his remarkable genre scenes painted in le gout hollandais, he also specialized in trompe l'oeil and portraiture. From the start of his career, around 1778, until the turn of the century, Boilly only rarely painted portraits in a format other than bust-length on a canvas measuring 22 by 17 cms, many examples of which are known today. It is the rare three-quarter length (Lucille Desmoulins, 1791, Musee Marmottan, Paris) or full length portraits (Robespierre, c. 1789, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille) which proves the exception
Around 1800, however, Boilly began to vary his portrait format. While continuing to paint the small-scale busts, he introduced larger full and three-quarter length portraits in which he placed his sitters, for the first time, in landscape settings.
