Naked woman lying on her stomach holding a vase

Auguste Péquégnot engraved this series of Figures de Femmes d'après les Maîtres, and gathered them together in a collection of sixteen prints introduced by a frontispiece of his imagination. He chose to be inspired by the works of François Boucher essentially.

These women are staged with some decorative elements: a vase, a drapery, a dove, but the engraver wanted to make an observation of the postures, attitudes that highlight femininity and its mysteries. Petegnot, who, wishing to suggest a drawing, used the technique of soft varnish to reproduce on copper the graphic effects of pencil on paper. These prints are usually printed with a reddish-brown sepia ink to approximate the visual warmth of the sanguine drawing.

François Boucher had a brilliant career, received all the honours, received incessant royal commissions and enjoyed the friendship of many amateurs. However, his elegant art no longer seduces from the 1760 Salon. Empress Eugénie by taste revisited François Boucher's art and put it back in the spotlight in the minds of art critics.
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