François Boucher

François Boucher was French Rococo painter, engraver, and designer, who best symbolize the frivolity and elegant superficiality of French court life at the middle of the 18th century. He was proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture and was perhaps the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century.Boucher was for a short time a pupil of Francois Lemoyne and in his early years was closely connected with Watteau, many of whose pictures he engraved. He was also the favourite artist of Louis XV's most famous mistress, Mme de Pompadour, to whom he gave lessons and whose portrait he painted several times. His work sometimes shows the effects of tastelessness, but at its best it has irresistible charm and great brilliance of execution. Qualities he passed on to his most important pupil, Fragonard.