The Love Letter — also referred to as The Two Confidantes, The Messenger, The Lovers’ Secret Mail, and, less convincingly, The Beloved Sheep — typifies the pastoral idiom François Boucher had already made his own by the late 1740s. In a lush and verdant garden or wooded countryside, two young women recline at the base of a stone pillar surmounted by a carved lion.[1] One ties an envelope around the neck of a pigeon with a blue ribbon while looking with admiration at her companion. The sheep that lounge about and the dog standing sentry tell us that these are shepherdesses, but like many such characters of Boucher’s they pay little attention to their responsibilities, preferring to idle the day away gathering flowers in a straw basket and sending missives via carrier pigeon. Boucher never concerned himself with the verities of country life, but employed the shepherdess type as an idealized and voluptuous protagonist for his decorative pictures. In this example he lavished his brush on the women’s satin dresses, their powdery skin, and the casual perfection of their hair. Despite their affectations, they are wholly at ease in their accommodating setting.
The Love Letter originally formed a pair with The Interrupted Sleep, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [FIG. 1], another pastoral subject that matches the Washington painting in size, composition, and amorous theme.[2] In The Interrupted Sleep a young shepherdess has dozed off and is about to be awakened by a young swain, who sneaks up from behind and tickles her face with a bit of straw.[3] Once again the setting is rich and fertile, enlivened by sheep and a dog; views into the distance balance the compositions. The palette in The Interrupted Sleep is somewhat more somber — one could say more rustic — than that of The Love Letter, particularly in the clothing, tending to pale ochers and brownish reds in the former and bluish purples and pale pinks in the latter. The artist’s exquisite brushwork unites the pair, particularly the delicate glazes that enrich the treatment of the draperies or articulate the petals of the flowers. In each painting Boucher uses a subtle orchestration of the lights and darks to enhance the visual experience, resulting in such lovely passages as the shadow that falls across the face of the woman in The Interrupted Sleep or the soft illumination of the woman’s ankles and toes in The Love Letter.
The two paintings, both signed and dated 1750, were not original compositions but were adapted by Boucher from a monumental tapestry cartoon that he had painted in 1748, probably with the help of studio assistants.[4] The tapestry, called The Fountain of Love, was first woven in 1755 at Beauvais as part of the series Le Noble Pastorale [FIG. 2].[5] One of Boucher’s grandest designs, it weaves together a series of intimate tête-à-têtes played out in a luxuriant landscape. The figures from The Love Letter and The Interrupted Sleep are visible, in reverse, on the right side of the composition, at the foot of a magnificent fountain topped by playful cupids. The picturesque mill at Charenton, which Boucher painted on numerous occasions, is prominent in the left background.
Although they were taken from an earlier project, The Love Letter and its pendant are wholly autograph. They were produced for no less prestigious a client than Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour (1721 – 1764), Louis XV’s maîtresse en titre, undoubtedly the reason Boucher took special care in painting them. The royal provenance is confirmed by the inscription on Jean Ouvrier’s (1725 – 1754) engraving of 1761 after The Love Letter, The Two Confidentes [FIG. 3].[6] When the two paintings were exhibited at the Salon of 1753, they were described as overdoors for Pompadour’s residence at Bellevue outside Paris.[7] They are no doubt identical to the works described in situ by Antoine Nicolas Dezallier d’Argenville (1723 – 1796) in his Voyage pittoresque des environs de Paris, published in 1755: “The little room that follows the bedroom of Her Majesty is entirely paneled. The moldings are carved with garlands of flowers, which have been naturalistically painted; and in the middle of the panels are cartouches where we see various childhood activities. There are two pastorals, by M. Boucher, over the doors.”[8]
Although d’Argenville’s account of the paintings is vague (even if he took care to relate the details of the room’s decoration), we can be confident that they are the canvases now in Washington and New York based on descriptions made when they were exhibited in Paris and on measurements recorded later.[9] As their dates indicate, the pictures were produced in 1750, but their inclusion at the Salon of 1753 presupposes that they were not installed at Bellevue until sometime after the exhibition closed. While the château was dedicated in November 1750, work on the interior continued until 1754.[10] Examination of the surfaces of the canvases suggests that the compositions were framed as ovals in boiseries.[11] In any event, the paintings did not remain for long in the paneling of Bellevue. They very likely were removed around 1757, when the château was ceded to the king’s daughters and much of its contents were emptied.[12] They are next recorded in 1764 in the vestibule on the ground floor of the Hôtel d’Évreux (now the Palais de l’Élysée), Pompadour’s Parisian residence. An inventory of the marquise’s effects drawn up in 1764 following her death described them in that location, along with other paintings from Bellevue.[13] Eighteen years later they resurfaced in the sale of the marquis de Ménars et de Marigny (1727 – 1781), Pompadour’s brother, who had inherited the bulk of her estate. The National Gallery of Art’s painting is described in sufficient detail that we can be certain of the identification: “Two young women are seated on the grass, attaching a letter to the neck of a dove. They are surrounded by a number of sheep and a dog in front of a pleasing and picturesque landscape.”[14]
Pompadour’s enthusiasm for Boucher is well established, and Bellevue was the setting for several of his most impressive productions.[15] Besides the overdoors described here, Boucher painted two scintillating pictures of Venus for the appartement des bains, The Toilet of Venus (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and The Bath of Venus;[16] what is probably the artist’s most celebrated religious picture, the so-called Lumière du monde (Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts), for the chapel;[17] and the pendant masterpieces The Rising of the Sun and The Setting of the Sun (London, Wallace Collection), woven at Beauvais.[18] Thus in the mid-1750s visitors to Bellevue could enjoy an extraordinary survey of Boucher’s art in several genres, including mythologies, a devotional painting, and the category most closely identified with his hand, the pastoral.
The latter genre was perhaps most amenable to the function of Bellevue, with its striking site overlooking the Seine and its luxuriant and intimate gardens.[19] According to Pompadour, “It’s a delightful site for the view, and the house, while not very large, is accommodating and charming, and not without a sort of magnificence.”[20] The château, the only residence built for the marquise from the ground up, had been designed as a retreat for her and the king, although soon after its completion, their relationship had changed from carnal to platonic.[21] At Bellevue in 1751 Madame de Pompadour played the role of the male lead, Colin, in a production of Jean François Marmontel’s (1723 – 1799) pastoral operetta Le Devin du village.[22]The influence of the literary pastoral was not lost on commentators who admired The Love Letter and The Interrupted Sleep at the Salon of 1753. The abbé Leblanc noted that Boucher had virtually invented the pastoral subject in painting, just as Fontenelle had brought new life to pastoral imagery in literature: “The Eclogues of M. de Fontenelle have enriched our pastorals with a new kind of shepherd, notable for the gallantry and delicacy of their sentiments. Those that M. Boucher has introduced into painting join all the merits of the former with a precious simplicity and naiveté that are not always those of M. de Fontenelle.”...
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