Beschreibung:

Circle of Nicolas-Bernard-Lépicié (1735-1784). Study of a boy sleeping, oil on paper laid down on panel, an unusual study of a sleeping young boy with shoulder-length auburn hair, his head tilted back with eyes closed and mouth slightly open, wearing a green tunic with a white collar, 24.5 x 19.2 cm (9 5/8 x 7 9/16 ins), moulded gilt wood frame underpainted with red (35.5 x 30.5 cm) (Quantity: 1) Provenance: Bonhams South Kensington, Old Master Paintings, 26 October, 2021, lot 45, estimate £3000-5000. Nicolas-Bernard-Lépicié, son of the Parisian printmaker François- Bernard Lépicié, received his first lessons from his father before entering the studio of the painter Carle Vanloo. In 1769 he entered the Académie Royale, presenting Achilles and the Centaur Chiron (Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Troyes), and in 1777 was appointed professor at the Académie. Popular as a portraitist and genre painter, Lépicié's work inspired critics to compare Lépicié to David Teniers (1610-1690), but it shares as much with the rustic genre interiors of Greuze and Chardin as with the ‘petites maîtres’ of the north; indeed, the artist was particularly attracted to the genre scenes of Chardin, whose works he knew intimately since his father had been Chardin’s favorite engraver. The fine detail, narrow palette, and powers of observation for which he was known made his works popular with late 18th-century French collectors drawn to the fashionable ‘goût hollandais’, and are discernible in the present study.