Jean Boucher de Bourges

Little is known about the training the painter, Jean Boucher, underwent. In 1596 he travelled to Italy, where he was active in Florence and Rome. In 1600 he returned to Bourges and there is documentary evidence that he was in Fontainebleau in 1602. Enjoying success as a painter in Bourges, the artist received numerous commissions, including one for a series of portraits of the monarch Henry IV for his native town. Boucher ran a flourishing studio and was the first to teach the young Pierre Mignard.

Boucher’s exquisite printed oeuvre, compiled during the latter part of his career, encompasses roughly a dozen etchings, all of them rare. Thuillier knew of four impressions of the print on offer here. The Madonna with Child in a niche was a common theme in Renaissance art and may have originated with Marcantonio Raimondi. The present etching is a good example of Boucher’s fluid style. Notable features of the work are the strikingly realistic depiction of the intimate bond between mother and child and the spontaneity and liveliness in the handling of the figures. The majority of Boucher’s surviving etchings have “I BOUCHIR” added posthumously to the plate but in no instance the address of a publisher (cf. Thuillier 1988 and Sue Welsh Reed in the catalogue French Prints from the Age of the Musketeers, no. 84). This is verifiable in the impression reproduced in the catalogue, that is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, whereas the present impression represents an early state, printed prior to the addition of the name. A fine, nuanced early impression, trimmed to just inside the platemark. Minor defects, otherwise in excellent condition. Very rare.

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