FRANÇOIS BOUCHOT (Paris 1800-1842)

Introduced to the art of printmaking by his father, François Bouchot enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in 1815 and won the Prix de Rome in 1823 while working in the studio of Guillaume Guillon Lethière (1760-1832). One of Bouchot’s paintings, General Bonaparte in the Council of the Five Hundred, at Saint-Cloud, 10 November 1799 (Versailles, Musée du Château de Versailles, inv. MV 1952; see C. Constans, Les Peintures. Musée national du château de Versailles, Paris, 1995, I, no. 628, ill.) is an emblem of Napoleonic politics illustrating the Coup of 18 Brumaire. In the large canvas a number of men lean on a tribune in positions reminiscent of that of the present model, yet none of the figures corresponds exactly.