Boilly (Louis Léopold)

a flirtatious young maid makes a play of fending off the amorous advances of an older man, while and older maid turns away with knitted brow and pursed lips, plate 28 from the popular series ‘Recueil des Profiles et Grimaces’, a collection of 98 separately published original lithographs by François Séraphin Delpech of Boilly’s compositions, largely satirising various strata of French society. Louis Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) was something of a child prodigy before moving to Paris in the late 1780s, where he became a prolific painter of portraits and genre scenes. His experiences of the French Revolution, particularly during the Terror, coloured his view of the human condition and informed his output. He was highly regarded during his career, being made a chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 1833,

lithograph with original hand-colouring on wove paper, 255 x 215 mm. (10 x 8 1/2 in), slight fraying and a few repaired tears at sheet edges, slight surface dust and a few handling creases,