Currently not on view
Arion on the Dolphin
The French Rococo master Boucher produced only a few royal commissions, including this exemplary work. It was intended as one of four paintings to be installed over the doors of the gaming room at La Muette—King Louis XV’s hunting lodge on the outskirts of Paris—illustrating the elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Only two were executed: Arion on the Dolphin, representing Water, and Vertumnus and Pomona (Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio), representing Earth. The notion for the commission stemmed from the opera-ballet Les Élémens (The Elements, 1721). Madame de Pompadour, Louis’s mistress, appeared in amateur performances of this work for the king in 1748.
More Context
Handbook Entry
This painting was commissioned as one of a series of four panels representing the Elements, which were to crown the doors in Château de La Muette, the hunting lodge and retreat of Louis XV. Boucher executed only Water (<em>Arion</em>) and Earth (<em>Vertumnus and Pomona</em>, Columbus Museum of Art); no evidence of designs for Air and Fire exists. He took the subjects from the opera-ballet <em>Les Élémens</em> (<em>The Elements</em>), in which the king had performed as a child. The libretto adapts an episode from Herodotus’s <em>Histories</em>: while at sea, the lyrist Arion arouses the greed of his fellow voyagers, who plot to rob and kill him. Arion convinces them to allow him a last hymn to Apollo, after which he jumps into the sea and is saved by a dolphin. In the opera, a storm destroys the plotters and their ship as the dolphin conveys Arion to the siren Leucosie, with whom he falls in love. French audiences would have understood Arion as Louis XV, who had survived the epidemic that killed his father and older brother to become the heir apparent to the throne, or <em>dauphin — </em>a word meaning also "dolphin." As royal mistress, the charming and musical Mme de Pompadour reenacted selections from the opera for the entertainment of the king and his friends. When La Muette was renovated in 1746–47 and Boucher was commissioned to paint the overdoors, the affair was in full swing; by 1750 it had ended, which may explain the premature termination of the series and eventual return of Water and Earth to Boucher’s inventory. In <em>Arion on the Dolphin</em>, the lone dolphin has become a fantastic sea-monster with a cortege of nereids and tritons, which Boucher depicts with naturalistic accuracy from the waist up (particularly the central triton’s face) and with fanciful flourish to the tip of each curling fishtail. The movement of Arion astride the triton and dolphin opposes the languor of the reclining, floating figures. This tension between motion and stasis is visible also in the water, which so foams with turbulence that the waves seem thick and solid. Still, the overall effect is light and airy: even the yellows of the lightning and flaming shipwreck are soft against the blues of sky and sea. This palette also reveals the influence of Watteau, whose drawings the young Boucher spent several years converting into prints.
Information
1748
Europe, France
French Royal Collection, 1749 (?); Jacques-Onesyme Bergeret, Paris, 1764; Bergeret sale, Paris, April 24, 1786, lot 49; private collection, Paris; Artemis, 1980; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum.
Lazare Duvaux, <em>Livre-Journal de Lazare Duvaux, marchand-bijoutier ordinaire du roy, 1748-1758: précédé d'une étude sur le goût et sur le commerce des objets d'art au milieu du XVIIIe siècle, et accompagné d'une table alphabétique des noms d'hommes ... mentionnés dans le journal, etc.</em>, (Paris: Société des Bibliophiles Français, 1873)., Vol. 1: p. 185
4927 1873Edmond & Jules de Goncourt, <em>L’art du dix-huitième siècle</em>, (Paris: A. Quantin, 1880-1882)., p. 189, 191, 207
4928 1880Andre Michel, <em>François Boucher</em>, (Paris: Librairie de l'art, 1889)., p. 74
4929 1889Fernand Engerand,<em> Inventaire des tableaux commandés et achetés par la Direction des batiments du roi (1709-1792)</em>, (Paris: E. Leroux, 1900)., p. 45-50
4930 1900Gustave Kahn, <em>Boucher: biographie critique, illustrée de vingt-quatre reproductions hors textes</em>, (Paris: H. Laurens, 1904)., p. 99
4931 1904Andre Michel, Louis Soullie and C Masson, <em>François Boucher</em>, (Paris: H. Piazza, 1906)., no. 85
4932 1906Pierre de Nolhac and Georges Pannier, <em>François Boucher, premier peintre du roi, 1703-1770</em>, (Paris: Goupil, 1907)., p. 61; p. 111
4933 1907Pierre de Nolhac, <em>François Boucher, premier peintre du Roi, 1703-1770</em>, (Paris: H. Floury, 1925)., p. 123
4934 1925Georges Wildenstein, "Un amateur de Boucher et de Fragonard Jacques-Onésyme Bergeret (1715-1785)",<em> Gazette des beaux-arts</em> 57/58 (n.s. 6) (Jul.-Aug. 1961): p. 39-84., p. 63
4935 1961Alexandre Ananoff, <em>François Boucher</em>, (Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1976)., Vol. 2: p. 25-27, no. 328
4936 1976<em>18th century French paintings drawings and sculpture: 6 June-7 July 1978, David Carritt Limited, London.</em>, (London: D. Carritt Ltd, 1978)., no. 1 (illus.)
4937 1978"Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1980", <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 40, no. 1 (1981): p. 14-31., p. 14; p. 15 (illus.)
3490 1981<p>Eric Zafran, <em>The Rococo age: French masterpieces of the eighteenth century</em>, (Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, 1983).</p>, p. 53; fig. II.1
4858 1983Jan Van der Marck, <em>In Quest of Excellence: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship </em>(Miami, FL: Center for the Fine Arts, 1984)., p. 186; p. 163 (color illus.)
2719 1984<p>Jean-Luc Bordeaux, "La commande royale de 1724 pour l'Hôtel du Grand Maître à Versailles", <em>Gazette des beaux-arts</em> 104 (n.s. 6) (1984): p. 113-126.</p>, p. 119
4938 1984Colin B. Bailey, <em>The first painters of the King: French royal taste from Louis XIV to the Revolution</em>, (New York: Stair Sainty Matthiesen, 1985)., p. 134; no. 80 (illus.)
4175 1985Francois Boucher, <em>François Boucher, 1703-1770: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 17-May 4, 1986, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, May 27-August 17, 1986, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Grand Palais, Paris, September 19, 1986-January 5, 1987</em>, (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986)., p. 240, cat. no. 55; p. 242 (illus.)
4939 1986Edith Appleton Standen, "The 'Fragments d'Opéra': a series of Beauvais tapestries after Boucher", <em>Metropolitan Museum journal</em> 21 (1986); p. 123-137., p. 125, fig. 4; p. 127
4940 1986Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones,<em> Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, </em>(Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 62 (illus.)
1899 1986Cara Dufour Denison, <em>French master drawings from the Pierpont Morgan Library</em>, (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993)., p. 122
4941 1993<em>Artemis 91-92: consolidated audited annual report: annual general meeting, 22 January 1993</em>, (Luxembourg: Artemis Group, 1993)., p. 26 (illus.)
4942 1993Betsy Rosasco and Norman Muller, <em>A royal commission: François Boucher's Water and Earth reunited:Princeton University Art Museum, March 13-May 13, 2010,</em> (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2010).
4943 2010<em>Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections </em>(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 205
1994 2013Alexandra Tauvry, "Little grunts, the grins and grimaces of recognition: Resistance and Exchange in Paul Muldoon and Northman MacBeath's Plan B," in <em>Revue LISA</em>, vol. 12, no. 3 (2014).
1478 2014Betsy J. Rosasco, "François Boucher's <em>Water and Earth</em>: postscript to an exhibition,"<em> Record of the Princeton University Art Museum</em> 73 (2014): p. 20–36., p. 20, fig. 1
2979 2014Norman Muller, "François Boucher's <em>Water and Earth</em>: postscript to an exhibition: technical examination," <em>Record of the Princeton University Art Museum</em> 73 (2014): p. 30–36., p. 30, figs. 13–14; p. 31, fig. 16
2982 2014Jean-Honoré Fragonard,<em> Fragonard amoureux: galant et libertin</em> (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux : Musée du Luxembourg-Sénat, 2015).
6858 2015Alastair Laing, <em>Boucher's Drawings: Who and What Were They For?</em> (New York: The Morgan Library and Museum, 2016).
6852 2016
