Boilly (Louis Léopold)

a doting husband gives a supportive embrace to his heavily-pregnant wife, who turns her flushed and perspiring face towards him, 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 chipping at sheet edges with a repaired tear at each side, two creases around the title, slight surface dust,