© Great Works of Western Art
1703 Born in Paris.
1723 Wins the Prix de Rome but is unable to undertake the three years study in Rome as the necessary funds are diverted to court favorites.
1723–28 Works as an illustrator for the engraver and publisher Jean-François Cars.
1728 Travels independently to Italy. In Rome he finds lodgings at the Académie de France. Unlike most artists visiting Rome, he seems to have preferred to study the work of baroque masters rather than Michelangelo and Raphael.
c1731 Returns to Paris having visited Naples, Venice and Bologna. Resumes activities as a book illustrator.
1733 Marries Marie-Jeanne Buseau.
1734 Boucher is ‘received’ at the Académie Royale.
1735 Receives his first royal commission for four large paintings for the Chambre de la Reine at Versailles.
1736 Produces his first tapestry designs. Tapestry is instrumental in the dissemination of Boucher’s style throughout Europe.
1742 In addition to producing stage designs and working on tapestry cartoons for the Beauvais works, he also exhibits some of his most famous pictures such as Diana after the Bath and Leda and the Swan.
1743 Produces stage designs and costumes for L’Ambigu de la Folie produced by the Théàtre de la Foire.
1747 The king’s principal mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, becomes Boucher’s most enthusiastic patron.
1755 Appointed Inspector of Works at the Gobelins tapestry factory.
1765 Boucher is appointed First Painter to the king and is elected Director of the Académie Royale.
1770 Dies in Paris.
1739 Family Taking Breakfast, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1740 Triumph of Venus, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum
1742 Diana after the Bath, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1742 The Toilette, Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
1743 A Lady on her Day Bed (Madame Boucher), New York, Frick Collection
1745 Odalisque, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1746 Landscape with a Pond, Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum
1751 The Toilet of Venus, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1751 Girl reclining (Louise O'Murphy), Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum
1753 Rising of the Sun, London, Wallace Collection
1753 Setting of the Sun, London, Wallace Collection
1755 Landscape with a Watermill, London, National Gallery
1756 Madame de Pompadour, Paris, Musée du Louvre
1757 Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum
1765 Rest on a Journey, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts
1768 Landscape with a Young Fisherman and his Companions, Manchester City Art Gallery
