The Suitor's Gift

1790 · Private collection

genre

The painting is in the tradition of bourgeois genre scenes, which examine the many sides of love. These works were greatly sought after by the public and collectors alike. A beautiful, elegantly dressed young woman looks out knowingly at the viewer as she receives the attentions of a suitor.

About the Artist

Louis Léopold Boilly

1761 – 1845

French painter and printmaker. The son of a wood-carver, Arnould Boilly (1764-79), he lived in Douai until 1778, when he went to Arras to receive instruction in trompe l'oeil painting from Dominique Doncre (1743-1820). He moved to Paris in 1785. Between 1789 and 1791 he executed eight small scenes on moralizing and amorous subjects for the Avignon collector Esprit-Claude-François Calvet (1728-1810), including The Visit (1789; Saint-Omer, Musée Hôtel Sandelin). He exhibited at the Salon between 1791 and 1824 and received a gold medal at the Salon of 1804. From the beginning his genre subjects were extremely popular with the public and collectors. In 1833, at a time when his popularity was declining, he was admitted to the Légion d'honneur and the Institut de France.

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