Boilly (Louis Léopold)

a young woman turns her head away with an expression of pain and anxiety, as her young man concentrates hard in his struggle to insert an earring, or possibly pierce the ear for the first time, 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 minor staining at sheet edges, slight surface dust,