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Portrait of a young boy

(1748 France)

Colnaghi


Portrait of a young boy

Artist(s): PIERRE-ALEXANDRE WILLE (1748-1821)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38.00cm wide   46.00cm high (14.96 inches wide  18.11 inches high)
Description:

An attribution to Pierre-Alexandre Wille, a pupil of Jean-Baptise Greuze, may be advanced for this portrait of a young boy. Greuze painted many informal portraits of women and young children and his influence is readily apparent here – see, for example, his Portrait of a Boy, formerly in the John Pierpont Morgan Collection, New York. Our work can be compared to other single figure genre portraits by Wille, including a Young Lady (signed and dated 1778; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux) and a Young girl holding a music book (with Emanuel von Baeyer, London, 2002). The latter is a particularly good comparison, for both works depict children with similar facial features, particularly the mouth and lips, and are painted with the same handling of the brush, that is with broad, brisk strokes to describe the clothes and a smoother finish for the flesh tones. There is also a similar play of reflected light along the line of the chin in the two works. The informal presentation of the boy links our work more closely to Wille’s portrait drawings than to his paintings, which generally have a more polished finish. See, for example, two signed and dated portraits of young boys, both of which show a brisk handling of chalk that finds a parallel with the free and rapid brushwork evident in our work.

Wille was the son of Jean-Georges Wille (1715-1808), an engraver, collector and dealer. He trained under Greuze from 1761 and 1763, who was a friend of his father, and then under Joseph-Marie Vien. In 1774 he was approved by the Academy and began painting genre scenes and portraits in the manner of Greuze. He played an active role in the Revolution, after which he is barely recorded. He also painted works for his father to engrave.