Louis Léopold Boilly
French, 1761-1845
The Arcades at the Palais-Royal
INV-1796
Louis Léopold Boilly
French, 1761-1845c. 1804
The Arcades at the Palais-Royal
Louis Léopold Boilly French, 1761-1845 →ink or chalk washdrawings (visual works)
Date
c. 1804
Medium
Pen and black ink, and brush and gray wash, with gray gouache, over black chalk, on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
36.5 × 45.7 cm (14 3/8 × 18 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Worcester Sketch Fund
This remarkably frank image flouted the norms of acceptable subject matter. Here, Boilly depicted the prostitutes—and the men who solicited them—who gathered in the arcade of the Palais-Royal in Paris. Better known for his charming genre paintings, Boilly was denounced in 1793 by a French revolutionary tribunal for painting pictures “of revolting obscenity to republican morals.” He survived and even in 1804, under the Napoleonic government’s somewhat looser standards, he was pushing the boundaries of propriety.
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