Louis-Léopold BOILLY La Bassée, 1761 - Paris, 1845 Defend me Canvas (Old restorations) Protect me, canvas, by L. L. Boilly 37 x 45,50 cm (14,57 x 17,91 in.) Provenance: J. Mignot Collection, 1960 ; Anonymous sale; Versailles, étude Blache, 16 June 1982, no. 28; Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery, New York, 1982; Linda Kaufman Collection, Norfolk; Anonymous sale; New York, Christie's, 22 May 1998, no. 135 ($145,5000); Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 2012; Private collection, Belgium Exhibitions: Femmes d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Paris, Musée Galliera, 1960, n°23 (preface by René Héron de Villefosse) Parfums d'interdit, Grasse, Musée Fragonard, 26 May to 23 September 2018 (catalogue written by Carole Blumenfeld), p. 104-105, no. 23 Bibliography: Henry Harrisse, Louis-Léopold Boilly, peintre, dessinateur et lithographe, Paris, 1898, p. 23 and p. 115, no. 357 Paul Marmottan, Le peintre Louis Boilly, Paris, 1913, p. 24 André Mabille de Poncheville, Boilly, Paris, 1931, p.74 Etienne Bréton and Pascal Zuber, Boilly le peintre de la société parisienne de Louis XVI à Louis-Philippe, Paris, 2019, volume II, p.536, n°304 P (repr.) Commentary: Related works: Engraving by Simon Petit, etching and stippling, printed in black (Bréton, Zuber, op. cit., p. 853, no. 1872 E) Preparatory drawing: Têtes de jeune femme et de jeune homme (Bréton, Zuber, op. cit., p. 535, no. 302D), (fig. 1) Probable counterpart: Tu saurais ma pensée, Henri de Rothschild collection, probably destroyed during the Second World War In the 1790s, Boilly painted a number of interior scenes that are variations on the representation of desire within different pairs of lovers. It is up to the viewer to discover the sensual undertones of these stolen moments of intimacy, as if taken from a libertine novel. The engraving in our painting is one of a series of six prints, and its title, given by the artist, "Defend me", is of course subtly ironic: the young woman is pretending to tell her dog to protect her from the advances of her beau, while appearing to consent to his assiduities, an impression reinforced by the mischievous look on the lovers' faces and the unbuttoned bodice. A statuette of Love is clearly visible in the background. Inspired by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Marguerite Gérard and the finish of 17th-century Dutch painting, Boilly excelled in his depiction of detail and the satin finish of his clothes. He kept in mind the Nordic genre scenes in which the pet had a real erotic significance, as in "Teasing the dog" by Frans van Mieris (16660, The Hague, Mauritshuis). Our painting was probably paired with 'Tu saurais ma pensée', which has now disappeared. The couple and the puppy, on the same sofa, are also present in a different arrangement in 'La Leçon d'union conjugale' (private collection, Paris, Sotheby's, 10 November 2021, no. 118).