The Love Letter, 1750
Oil on canvas over wood, .820 x .752 m
Timken Collection 1960.6.3
18th-century galleries
Eighteenth-century French aristocrats like the woman quoted above filled their idle
hours with amusements. They were enchanted by idealized views of country life.
Pastorals were produced on stage and played out in real-life masquerades by elegant
young people-including perhaps these "shepherdesses." Their rustic fashions are made of
fine silks in delicate pastel tints, and the only threat to their flock comes from the
stone lion of a garden statue. Their display of dainty toes is not a sign of a simpler
life in the country. It held-as contemporary audiences would have recognized-an amorous
promise. There is no doubt this is a love note they so intimately discuss.
Boucher developed a style that perfectly embodied the elegance of eighteenth-century
aristocratic life. His colors have the pale luminosity of shells, butterflies, and
polished stones -all objects he collected to study and copy their iridescence. He
became the most important decorative painter in France under the patronage of Madame de
Pompadour, Louis XV's influential mistress. This painting was commissioned for her
chateau at Bellevue, where it was one of a pair of overdoor decorations.