The Presentation in the Temple (c. 1770): Art, History and Details

The Presentation in the Temple (c. 1770) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is François Boucher (French, 1703–1770).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: The Presentation in the Temple
• Date: c. 1770
• Creator attribution: François Boucher (French, 1703–1770)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: 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.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1925.1005

A detail from the museum

This drawing was probably a sketch for an oil painting that Boucher was unable to complete before his death.

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue d'une collection choisie de tableaux originaux et dessins précieux des trois écoles...du cabinet de M. Chariot. Paris: Paillet, 1788.
• Heseltine, J[ohn] P[ostle]. Drawings by François Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard, and Antoine Watteau in the Collection of J[ohn] P[ostle] H[eseltine]. London: Autotype Company, 1900.
• Michel, André. François Boucher. Paris: H. Piazza, 1906.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.