Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000313The Presentation in the Temple
About the Artwork
Late in his career, François Boucher adopted a drawing style characterized by strong pen lines and loosely brushed washes. This sheet, which dates from that period, depicts the blind priest Simeon, at left, who was promised that he would see the Messiah before his death. When the Christ child was brought into the temple near him, Simeon regained his sight. Boucher emphasized the miraculous event by showing divine light streaming down onto the priest from the dove above, which represents the Holy Spirit. The drawing is similar to an oil sketch (Louvre, Paris) that Boucher completed during the last year of his life -- one of the very last projects he ever completed.
Inscriptions
verso, center, in graphite: G; lower left, in graphite: Lest R./-oc-.
Provenance
?-1770: Probably Barthélemy-Augustin Blondel d'Azincourt [1719-1783], Paris 1770: (Paris, Cabinet curieux...de M. d'Azincourt, April 18, 1770, no. 61, sold to Chariot) 1770-1788: M. Chariot, Paris 1788: (possibly Hotel de Bullion, Paris, Collection choisie...du Cabinet de M. Chariot, January 28, 1788, no. 128, sold to Pierre-François Basan) 1788-?: Possibly Pierre-François Basan [1723-1797], Paris ?-?: Jan Baptist de Graaf [1742-1804; Lugt 1120], Amsterdam ?-1883: Possibly Eugénie Tripier-LeFranc [1805-1872], Paris 1883: (Paris, Tripier-LeFranc sale, June 5-7, 1883, no. 45) by 1900-after 1914: John Postle Heseltine [1843-1929; Lugt 1507], London ?-?: (Richard Owen, Paris) ?-1925: Leonard C. Hanna Jr., Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 1925-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Drawings in the Classic and Romantic Tradition before 1830. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 7, 1932-January 8, 1933). Art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 9-December 2, 1934). Old Master Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 4-March 26, 1939). Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 17-August 24, 1942). Eighteenth Century Masterpieces. Society of the Four Arts (organizer) (December 12, 1952-January 4, 1953). Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). French Drawings from American Collections: Clouet to Matisse. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands (July 31-September 28, 1958); Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France (October 24, 1958-January 2, 1959); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (February 3-March 15, 1959). Italian and French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 1959-February 2, 1960). Aspects of Drawing. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 10-April 2, 1961). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963). Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). Prints and Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 6-September 9, 1965). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968). François Boucher in North American Collections: 100 Drawings. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (December 23, 1973-March 15, 1974); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (April 1-May 20, 1974). Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 31-August 19, 1979). 18th Century Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 6-November 22, 1981). French Prints and Drawings in the Age of the Bourbons, 1589-1792. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 2-May 16, 1982). Northern European Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1982-January 9, 1983). I and Thou. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 21-May 27, 1984). French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). The Drawings of François Boucher. Frick Collection, New York, NY (October 24-December 14, 2003).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- François Boucher (French, 1703–1770)
- Date
- c. 1770
- Medium
- pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, and black chalk, heightened with white paint; framing lines in pen and brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 32.3 x 20 cm (12 11/16 x 7 7/8 in.); Framed: 66 x 50.9 x 6.4 cm (26 x 20 1/16 x 2 1/2 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
- Accession no.
- 1925.1005
More by François Boucher in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000313
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