François Boucher, Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells
Severance Fund, 1952.529 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
François Boucher

Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells

c. 1736

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
Black chalk with stumping, and red chalk, heightened with white chalk on beige laid paper
Dimensions
37.7 × 22.2 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-190685

In this early chalk drawing, François Boucher combined plants, dolphins, rocks, shells, and tritons (mythological creatures that are part man and part fish) into a design that was meant to suggest a fountain in a rocky garden grotto. This sheet represents l'art rocaille, or "rock and shell art," a style of ornament that developed in France during the 1730s and featured decorative compositions with abundant detail. The image was one of seven that the printmaker Gabriel Huquier translated as etchings around the time Boucher completed them. These reproductions helped to bring Boucher's work to a…

Provenance

Severance Fund, 1952.529

Registry history

  • c. 1736 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — drawings

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