François Boucher, 'Landscape with a Watermill', 1755

A weathered but picturesque watermill sits in a landscape that includes several idealised peasants engaged in tasks such as fishing, collecting water and washing clothes.

Although this landscape has an air of decorative artificiality, even theatricality, Boucher includes sufficient detail to suggest it may have some basis in his direct observation of an actual place. These details include a net hanging to the left of the mill door, a makeshift outdoor privy to the right of the door, and a small tower at the end of the bridge that seems to be a dovecote or a tollgate. Other details that add to the sense this is based on a real scene include the weeds hanging from the millwheel and a low dam that we can just glimpse further upstream through the arches of the bridge. The bridge’s central arches also frame two poles or stakes that may support fishing nets, reinforcing the impression this is a working landscape. White doves gather around a dovecote in the mill’s thatched roof.

Many of these elements also appear in a drawing by Boucher in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Although signed, this drawing is undated and it is not possible to say if it was made before or after the painting, which Boucher has signed and dated (on the boat to the left of the picture). Although it is unlikely that the drawing was made on site, it may be based upon a study or sketch of somewhere that Boucher had visited. One potential clue is provided by an engraving made in 1772 after the drawing, which has the title Moulin près de Chatou (Mill near Chatou). On the right bank of the Seine, a few miles west of Paris, Chatou would become a favourite haunt of painters around 1900. However, its watermill was replaced by a windmill in 1684 and throughout the eighteenth century its bridge was made of wood rather than stone. If, as the print’s title suggests, the mill in Boucher’s drawing was near Chatou rather than in Chatou itself, the scene may be based on a neighbouring hamlet. One possibility is Mauport, also on the right bank, which in the late seventeenth century had a watermill and stake net. These may have still existed in the 1750s. Mills appear in other landscapes by Boucher, including the mill at Quinquengrogne, near Charenton, on the south-eastern outskirts of Paris. The mill in this picture has similar architectural features to the Quinquengrogne mill, but it has a simpler structure and lacks the striking elevated position of the site at Charenton.

Watermills were a popular subject among eighteenth-century French artists, who particularly looked to pictures of them by Dutch painters of the previous century such as Jacob van Ruisdael. Boucher owned a large chalk drawing by Ruisdael that featured cottages and a watermill. But there are also echoes here of Claude, particularly in Boucher’s use of tall trees to frame the scene as if it were a stage set. Against a pale sky, the entire landscape is suffused with silvery-green tones which Boucher counterbalances with areas of brighter colour, most notably the red items of clothing. The painting shows his characteristically fluid handling of paint.