S’il Vous Plaît

Artist Louis Léopold Boilly (French, 1761-1845)

Place of OriginFrance

Dateabout 1790

DimensionsH: 15 7/8 in. (40.4 cm); W: 12 5/8 in. (32 cm)

MediumOil on wood panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1975.58

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 26, Rotunda

Label TextLouis-Léopold Boilly’s interpretations of everyday life in Napoleonic France are renowned not only for their documentary and anecdotal detail—contemporary dress, domestic interiors, public and private spectacles—but also for their wider cultural significance in light of social attitudes and behavior during the Revolution. In this picture the child desires the fruit held delicately in the hands of her mother. She sucks her fingers in substitution for the gift offered temptingly by the woman, evocative of Eve. The subject, however, is pointedly left incomplete and ambiguous, allowing the viewer to complete the story in any number of ways. Boilly was an avid collector of the Dutch 17th-century genre painters Gerard Terborch (1582–1662) and Gabriel Metsu (1629–1669). This painting exhibits all the technical virtuosity of a Dutch 17th-century domestic scene, although colored with 18th-century sentimentality.Published ReferencesHarrisse, H., L.L. Boilly, peintre, dessinateur et lithographe, Paris, 1898, p. 130, no. 502.

Marmottan, P., Le peintre Louis Boilly, Paris, 1913, p. 251 (as La récompense).

Mabille de Poncheville, A., Boilly, Paris, 1931, p. 24.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 25, pl. 213.

"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 87, no. 1286, March 1976, repr. p. 45.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 19, nos. 2 & 3, 1976, p. 70, repr.

Breton, Etienne and Pascal Zuber, Boilly: Le Peintre de la Societe Parisienne de Louis XVI a Louis-Philippe, Paris, Arthena, 2 vols., p. 349, vol. 1, repr. (col.) p. 349, no. 319 P, p. 541, vol. 2, repr. (col.) no. 319 P, p. 541.

Exhibition HistoryHanover, NH, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; Toledo Museum of Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France, 1997-1998, cat. no. 50, p. 16, 196, 200, 202, repr. p. 201 (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, The Libbey Dolls: Fashioning the Story, October 28, 2016-February 12, 2017.