Louis-Leopold Boilly Art

Louis-Léopold Boilly (Born 1761) was born in La Bassée, in northern France. He was a French draftsman and painter. He produced a large number of genre paintings in which he vividly documented the French middle-class’ social life. Boilly was a gifted creator of popular portrait paintings. His life and work spanned the eras of the French Revolution, monarchical France, the Bourbon Restoration, the Napoleonic Empire, and the July Monarchy. Boilly was the son of a local wood sculptor. A self-taught painter, he began his career at a very young age; at the age of twelve or thirteen, he started to produce his first works. By 1774 Boilly had began showing his work to the Austin friars of Douai who were so impressed with his work, and within 3 years, the bishop of Arras invited him to study and work in his bishopric which he accepted. While there, Boilly produced hundreds of paintings – some 300 small works of portraiture. Boilly received instruction from Dominique Doncre in trompe l'oeil painting before he moved to Paris around 1787. He was a celebrated painter of his time and was very popular. In 1804, the artist was awarded a medal by the Parisian Salon for his work in the Courtyard of the Messageries, titled “The Arrival of a Mail-coach.” And in 1833 he was decorated as the Légion d'honneur, a chevalier of the highest order of then nation. Today, framed Louis-Léopold Boilly art are in great demand and they adorn the walls of many prestigious galleries around the world. He remains regarded highly as master of oil painting. Boilly died on 4 January 1845 in Paris.