La Récureuse

genre

Bouys became chiefly a painter of portraits (among those painted by him was one of La Fosse), but a late genre picture by him like La Récureuse (The Scrubbing Woman) comes as a delightful novelty, even allowing for the influence of Chardin, so much younger an artist. The subject is humble enough, domestic and also notably demure in treatment. In her prettily-striped dress, the young servant girl is seriously absorbed by her task of polishing the scattered silverware, itself painted with serious, absorbing attention to shape as well as to surface.

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About the Artist

André Bouys

1656 – 1740

French painter. Although a native of Bar (Hyéres), from an early age André Bouys studied in Paris under François de Troy, a competent portrait painter and father of the more famous Jean-François de Troy. In Paris, he established his reputation as one of the foremost portraitists of his generation. His membership to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1688 was secured on the basis of two portraits of his contemporaries, the artist Charles de la Fosse and the sculptor Etienne le Hongre, both of which are now housed in the Musée de Versailles. He was accepted (agrée) at the Academy in 1688 and named Conseiller in 1707. Although Bouys painted genre paintings and still-lifes, his principal occupation was as a portraitist. Among his sitters were a number of musicians, his most famous portrait being that of French composer and viola da gamba master Marin Marais (1704, Musée de la Musique, Paris). It was not until the age of seventy six that he started specialising in single figure genre scenes incorporating still-life elements. Focusing on these almost exclusively in the last years of his life, he exhibited one portrait and five genre scenes at the Salon of 1737.

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