Are They Thinking about the Grape? (Pensent-ils au raisin?)1747
This painting is based on a 1745 pantomime about a young shepherd’s awakening love for a shepherdess. More about this work
About this work
This painting is based on a 1745 pantomime about a young shepherd’s awakening love for a shepherdess. The couple feed each other grapes—a fruit associated with Bacchus, god of pleasure—suggesting that their encounter is not entirely chaste. François Boucher’s compositions on pastoral themes are his most influential contribution to 18th-century French art.
Text from the Art Institute of Chicago.
What you’re looking at
A work made of oil on canvas.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
François Boucher
French, 1703–1770 · Born and died in Paris.
Boucher trained with François Lemoyne, won the Prix de Rome and spent several years in Italy before rising to become First Painter to Louis XV. Madame de Pompadour was his most important patron. He worked at every scale, from mythological canvases full of rosy nudes and cupids to designs for the Beauvais and Gobelins tapestry factories, porcelain and the opera. His light, decorative manner came to define the French Rococo.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1973.304
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
