Noël Hallé (Paris 1711-1781)

This rediscovered work is doubtless the 'petit tableau' exhibited by the artist at the Salon of 1763, with a pendant Une bergère qui flatte de la main un jeune berger (untraced). Hallé first exhibited the subject with a larger picture ('de 4 pieds' - untraced) at the Salon of 1761, when the composition was recorded by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin in a drawing in his livret. Hallé's reinterpretation of a favourite motif of French Rococo painting achieved great success, and may have been engraved as many as four times (by Vivant Denon, J. Aveline?, Louis-Marin Bonnet and Jean-Auguste Patour). It was doubtless in response to this success that Hallé exhibited the present picture at the very next Salon.