Truncated Venus: Reclining Nude by Antoine Watteau

Reclining Nude (c 1716)

Here is a nude with an unusual origin, which Agent Triple P saw in the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena a few years ago.

The Judgement of Paris (1721). One of Watteau's final paintings

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) is most famous for his bucolic but theatrical paintings of figures in a landscape, particularly using characters from the commedia dell'arte. His nudes, many of which are, characteristically, only partly naked, either disport themselves in mythological scenes or in domestic interiors.

The Remedy (c 1716)

This very small (14cm x 17cm) painting is unusual in that it depicts a nude in neither a domestic nor a mythological scene.  However, recently Triple P came across a preliminary drawing for this painting which shows a very different composition and shows the figure in full, rather than the truncated version above.  Entitled The Remedy it shows the same woman about to have an enema administered by her maid.  In those days it would have been known as a clyster after the clyster syringe the maid is holding.  The use of an enema using the clyster syringe was a common remedy for stomach cramps and constipation from the 17th until the 19th century. 

The Secret Toilet (c 1715)

The drawing itself is far more than a sketch (although drawn over the top of other sketches) whereas the painting looks more like a study.  Watteau had produced a number intimate pictures of a lady and her maid, such as The Secret Toilet, which is in a private collection and we can only find in a black and white reproduction.  So whether he had any plans to produce this rather curious subject in a full blown painting isn't known.

Watteau in 1720 painted by Rosalba Carriere

Watteau, the son of a tiler, was initially apprenticed to a local painter in Valenciennes, where he was born.  Having outgrown his teacher he moved to Paris at the age of eighteen and workied in a workshop that produced copies of old master paintings.  It was here that he developed his characteristic, loose style which, in many ways, was an early forerunner of impressionism; particularly in the way he handled landscapes.  Failing to win the Prix de Rome in 1709 his 1712 entry was so accomplished that not only did he win the prize of a year's study in Rome but he was immediately accepted as  a full member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

A Lady at her Toilet (1716)

Always a sickly individual, he died in 1721 at the age of only 36, largely unknown outside a small group of devotees but now considered one of the most influential painters of the eighteenth century.

Franco-Irish Venus: Marie-Louise O' Murphy de Boisfaily by François Boucher

This is very, very close to being our favourite nude representation of a girl (she was fourteen when this picture was painted) in any medium.

Mary-Louise O'Murphy de Boisfaily was the fifth daughter of an army officer of Irish extraction, Daniel O' Murphy de Boisfaily, who had taken to shoemaking after his retirement. She was born in Rouen on October 21st 1737. After her father died her mother took her to Paris where she traded in second hand clothes whilst finding work for her daughters. Mary-Louise became a dancer at L'Opera and a model. Casanova knew her (she is mentioned in his diaries) and she may have been his mistress briefly. Casanova certainly introduced her to Boucher who painted this picture of her in 1752.

It has been argued that the picture was a direct invitation to Louis XV showing that she was available to be his mistress. Rather like leaving a photographic postcard of yourself in a phone box outside a Park Lane hotel, we suppose.


Louis XV knew a fine piece when he saw it (he liked the painting too) and she quickly became one of his second tier mistresses and stayed so for two years. Louis had an official mistress, of course, Madame de Pompadour, who may have been happy at first for the king to entertain this plump little distraction as she was increasingly exhausted by Louis voracious sexual demands, to the extent that she was taking the feminine, eighteenth century version of Viagra to keep up with him. Mary-Louise bore the king an illegitimate daughter, Agathe Louise de Saint-Antoine (1754-1774), but she tried to oust Madame de Pompadour from top mistress spot and was soon kicked out of the court and married off to Comte de Beaufranchet, who must have been very cheered by this development, as Mary-Louise was still only 17. He didn't get to enjoy her for very long, though, as he was killed at the Battle of Rossbach in 1757, where Frederick the Great smashed a combined Franco-Austrian army. Mary-Louise subsequently had two more husbands, including one who was thirty years younger than her who she married at the age of 61! Although she was imprisoned for a time during the French Revolution she survived The Terror and died in 1814 at the age of 77.

The painting now hangs in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. We were lucky enough to see it displayed in an exhibition in Berlin a couple of years ago (and purchased a very splendid mousemat of the picture which we use to this day) and it is a comparatively small picture: about 24" by 29". Just the sort of sized picture Boucher would turn out for the Cabinets of his wealthy gentleman collectors.

Boucher also painted another version of the painting, which is in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, but it doesn't quite have the plump pliancy of the original.

Victoire O'Murphy

There is another very similar picture (in the Louvre) which is believed to be Mary-Louise's older sister Victoire.

Miss Victoire O'Murphy in Turkish costume

This latter painting also exists in a clothed version, which is in a private collection, hence we only have a black and white scan from a fifty year old book in Triple P's library.

Boucher (1703-1770) was a prolific artist and at the time was criticised for churning paintings out for the money. A more telling criticism came from the philosopher Diderot who accused Boucher of "prostituting his own wife" as he had her pose for erotic pictures which he sold to collectors.

This led to increasing notoriety and his art was criticised more and more towards the end of his life, as neo-classicism ousted his Rococo style.

Triple P also presents Miss Ulla Lindstrom from Penthouse Magazine, November 1969. The pose was an unusual one for the time and we would like to think it was a deliberate echo of Boucher's work; the position of the arms and head is almost identical to the work in the Louvre. The photographer, Bob Guccione, was an artist first and a photographer second. He lived and painted in Paris during the early sixties and would certainly have seen the painting of Victoire O'Murphy in the Louvre. So perhaps a touch of Miss Lindstrom's allure is due to Boucher and his young model of over 200 years previously.

Finally, we have to include Pop Art painter Mel Ramos' (1935-) wonderful Touche Boucher (1972) in which he recreates the famous painting but adds tan lines!

Mel Ramos does Boucher by way of Ursula Andress