La Bassée -Paris, 1761 -1845 · Portraits, crowds and social comedy

From a child's face to the crowd at the Louvre, Boilly observes French society at all scales with smiling precision and a keen sense of spectacle.

Louis-Léopold Boilly was born in La Bassée in 1761 and died in Paris in 1845. A sought-after portraitist, painter of genre scenes and experimenter of trompe l'oeil, he crossed the Revolution, the Directory, the Empire and the Restoration in making contemporary life its great subject. His small bust portraits, with a precise finish, constitute an extraordinarily diverse gallery of society. In The Public viewing David's "Crown" at the Louvre, painted in 1810 in oil on a 61.6 × 82.6 cm canvas, the official image is only partially visible: in The Public viewing David's "Crown" at the Louvre, painted in 1810 in oil on a 61.6 × 82.6 cm canvas, the official image is only partially visible: the real spectacle is the crowd who came to admire him. The monumental coronation of David had been presented publicly in threes taken up between 1808 and 1810 as a political celebration of Napoleonic power. Boilly observes the removed hats, the printed guide consulted by a soldier, the numerous children and the reactions of visitors pressed against each other. He paints less the Empire itself than the way a society learns to look at it. The "Louis Léopold Boilly" selection notably compares Portrait of a Boy - Louis-Léopold Boilly and The Public Watching David's "Crown" at the Louvre - Louis-Léopold Boilly. His reading favors the material.

Boilly places David's masterpiece off-camera to make the audience, his gestures and his looks, the true picture of history.