Francois Boucher

François Boucher was a French artist, advocate of Rococo style, famous for his idyllic paintings on classical topics and allegories representing the pastoral life. He was the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century. He was admired by the François Lemoyne, whose apprentice Boucher became, but after few months he went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars. Reflecting inspiration gained from the Watteau and Rubens, Boucher's early paintings celebrates the idyllic, portraying nature and landscape but his art typically depict scenes with a definitive style of eroticism, and his mythological scenes are passionate and intimately romantic. Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress of King Louis XV, was a great admirer of Boucher's, and had the painter under her protection. His name, along with that of his patron Madame de Pompadour, had become synonymous with the French Rococo style.