Boucher's Four Seasons

This new volume in the Frick Diptych series features an illuminating essay by Frick deputy director and Peter JaySharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon paired with a newly-commissioned cycle of paintings by Flora Yukhnovich. François Boucher (1703-1770) made the four paintings known as the Four Seasons in 1755 for Madame De Pompadour, King Louis XV's long-term official mistress. Their original location is unknown, but their peculiar shape suggests that they were used as overdoors, no doubt in one of Pompadour's many properties in France. In place of the labors that traditionally illustrate the theme of the four seasons, Boucher depicts delightful amorous encounters in joyous colors. In Spring, a youth, set in an enchanting pastoral setting, adorns his lover's hair with flowers. A group of voluptuous bathing nudes represents Summer. In Autumn, a young man offers a bunch of grapes to his fashionable beloved. Perhaps the most beguiling of all is Winter, which reflects the eighteenth-century European fascination with Russia. A Tartar in pseudo-Russian dress pushes the heroine on an elaborate sleigh. This combination of luxury and seduction--all treated in a fanciful, even humorous manner--is typical of Boucher. Accompanying the Boucher paintings is Flora Yuknovich's contribution, an extraordinary cycle of paintings inspired by Boucher's Four Seasons, to be displayed at the Frick, in a space on the first floor, occupied between 1935 and 2020 by the Boucher Room.