Louis-Léopold Boilly, Carnival Scene (Scène de carnaval), 1832, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

LONDON - In 2019, the National Gallery will stage the first-ever exhibition in the UK devoted to Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845), one of the most important artists of Revolutionary France.

At the core of Boilly: Scenes of Parisian Life will be 18 paintings from a British private collection which have never been displayed or published. Assembled by British property developer and collector Harry Hyams over the course of the last 60 years, these works from The Ramsbury Manor Foundation will introduce National Gallery visitors to an artist who was at the very heart of the Parisian art world throughout the Revolution of 1789, the Terror, the rise and fall of Napoleon, and the restoration of the French monarchy.

Best known for his highly detailed, exquisitely painted genre scenes, Boilly’s artistic production was diverse and prolific: over the course of his long career he worked in oils, watercolours, chalk, ink, engraving, and lithography, frequently using one medium to imitate another and producing thousands of works of art. What best unifies this vast and varied oeuvre is Boilly’s interest in looking. Whether depicting an audience and performance in a genre scene, or letting us spy on an aristocratic interior; tricking the viewer’s eye with an illusionistic trompe-l’oeil painting, or depicting a wide-eyed sitter in a portrait – Boilly was fascinated by the art of looking, and the art of being looked at.

Born on the outskirts of Lille in 1761, Boilly settled in Paris in 1785 and spent the following six decades there. His earliest paintings were small, relatively simple compositions, making use of only a handful of elegantly dressed figures in a fashionable, contemporary interior, often including ravishing still-life elements to show off his skill in rendering reflective surfaces. Many of these paintings had romantic or mildly risqué subject matter: 'Comparing Little Feet' (1891, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) uses a seemingly innocent competition between two young women as a means of exposing their legs and décolletages, whereas works such as 'Two Young Women Kissing' (about 1790–4, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) are more explicitly erotic.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Comparing Little Feet (Comparaison des petits pieds), 1891. Oil on canvas, 44.3 × 38.1 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Two Young Women Kissing (Deux jeunes femmes s'embrassant), about 1790–4. Oil on canvas, 45.5 × 37.5 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

In 1789 everything changed with the French Revolution. The old power structures that had governed almost every facet of artistic life were swept away, and without them the young painter was faced with exciting new opportunities. Suddenly, Boilly’s intimate, interior views for elite, private patrons got him into hot water: denounced by a fellow artist, he was hauled before the infamous Committee of Public Safety and accused of painting works that were damaging to republican morals. Luckily, Boilly escaped imprisonment, turning instead to paintings intended for public exhibition. Previously considered a rather lowly type of art, genre paintings now had a part to play in telling the nation’s rapidly unfolding history, and for Boilly this would reach its most ambitious and sophisticated expression with the painting that rocketed him to fame: 'The Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio' (1798, Musée du Louvre). In depicting 31 of the greatest luminaries of his generation – among them 18 painters, three sculptors, three architects, and two engravers – Boilly was making a grand statement about the modern French School.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio (Rencontre d'artistes dans l'atelier d'Isabey), 1798. Oil on canvas, 71.5 × 111 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department des peintures, leg Biesta-Monrival © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Franck Raux

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Meeting of Artists in Isabey’s Studio (Étude pour "Rencontre des artistes dans l'atelier d'Isabey" ), c. 1798. Black chalk enhanced with white on paper, 41.3 × 50.5 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

At the turn of the 19th century, Boilly also began producing ambitious urban vistas. In these scenes, Boilly became the first French artist to paint views of everyday life on Paris’s streets and boulevards. Boilly’s street scenes can be characterised by their attention to detail, their high degree of finish, and their rich colours. They almost always include children, yet his paintings largely debunk the charges of being simplistic or saccharine that are so often levelled against his 18th-century ‘chocolate-box’ predecessors. In the painting 'The Poor Cat' (1832, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) a child stealthily picks a pocket while a family of beggars slumps lethargically on the pavement. 'The Barrel Game' (about 1828, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) features a game outside a wine shop which has its share of shady goings-on in the background, with amorous embraces and a man urinating against a wall. In 'A Carnival Scene' (1832, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) – Boilly’s late masterpiece and most ambitious street scene – costumed characters from every epoch Boilly lived through parade through the streets of Paris.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Poor Cat (Le pauvre chat), 1832. Oil on canvas, 31.9 × 40.4 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Poor Cat (Le pauvre chat), about 1825. Ink and wash on paper, 28.2 × 35.4 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Barrel Game, about 1828. Oil on canvas, 37.8 × 46.8 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Carnival Scene ( (Scène de carnaval)), 1832. Oil on canvas, 60.3 × 106.5 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

As well as his genre paintings, portraiture was a constant throughout Boilly’s career – it is estimated he produced 5,000 small portraits in his lifetime. In the aftermath of the Revolution, Boilly recognised that the change in social structures had made space for a new kind of patron and portrait – small, affordable likenesses which he boasted he could produce in just two hours. These will be represented in the exhibition through works such as 'Portrait of the Comtesse François de Sainte-Aldegonde' (about 1800–5, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation) and 'Portrait of a Lawyer' (first quarter of the 19th century, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation).

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Portrait of the Comtesse François de Sainte-Aldegonden (Portrait de la Comtesse François de Sainte-Aldegonde), about 1800–5. Oil on canvas, 21.5 × 16.3 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Portrait of a Lawyer (Portrait d'un homme de loi), first quarter of the 19th century. Oil on canvas, 22 × 17 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Boilly was not only working in a politically revolutionary period, but he was also actively involved in turning representation – and especially the relationship between different media – on its head. It was he who first used the phrase trompe l’oeil to describe illusionistic paintings that "deceived the eye" by creating the illusion that depicted objects exist in three dimensions. In the National Gallery’s Girl at a Window although it is painted in oil on canvas, the use of monochromatic tones for the main subject, the blue border, and the ‘printed’ signature at bottom left give the illusion that we are actually looking at a print in a mount. 

Louis-Léopold Boilly, A Girl at a Window, after 1799. Oil on canvas, 55.2 x 45.7 cm. Bequeathed by Emilie Yznaga, 1945, NG5583. © The National Gallery 2019

Dr Francesca Whitlum-Cooper is the curator of Boilly: Scenes of Parisian Life. She says: "Boilly was an exceptionally talented artist – technically brilliant, endlessly inventive and extremely modern. He seized the opportunities brought about by the French Revolution, becoming one of the first artists to earn his living on the free market and anticipating the invention of photography with his thousands of quickly executed portraits. But as well as his canniness at navigating the market and his eye for innovation, Boilly had a strong sense of humour. His wry, witty views of the characters on the streets of Paris are just as delightful and engaging today as they were 200 years ago.”

Director of the National Gallery, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, says: “From the aristocratic boudoir to the boulevards of Revolutionary Paris, Boilly's paintings reflect the tumultuous times in which he lived. Over a career that spanned seven decades his exquisite pictures pass from the world of 'The Dangerous Liaisons' to that of 'Les Misérables'. Interiors, portraits, genre scenes, and trompe l'oeil paintings tell the story of his passionate engagement with the most exhilarating city in the world, Paris. This is the first exhibition of Boilly's works to be held in Britain and most of them have never before been seen publicly.”

28 FEB - 19 MAY 2019

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Heart Recognition, about 1790, Oil on canvas, 46 × 56.5 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees.

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Portrait of Jean Darcet and six members of his family (Portrait de Jean Darcet et de six membres de sa famille), about 1801. Chalks on paper, 37 × 52.5 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Little Chapel (La petite chapelle), c. 1803-04. Black chalk, ink and watercolor, 32.4 × 40.3 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Urban Toll (Péage urbain), c. 1803-04. Black chalk, ink and watercolor, 31.7 × 39.8 cm, The Ramsbury Manor Foundation. Photo © courtesy the Trustees

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Jean-Antoine Houdon at work in his atelier, 1804. © musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris

Louis-Léopold Boilly, The Public Viewing David’s "Coronation" at the Louvre, 1810. © 2000–2019 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Louis-Léopold Boilly, Entrance to the Jardin Turc, 1812, Private Collection. Photo © courtesy the Trustees