Drei Frauenstudien

The drawing shows three studies after figures in the painting "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Jacopo and Francesco Bassano. (For the identification of the figure studies and how Boucher reused them in his paintings, see Alistar Laing and Pierre Rosenberg in: The Drawings of Francois Boucher, exh. cat. The Frick Collection, New York 2003,cat.no. 10): He made a fresh study from nature of the figure  with the handle of a skillet on the drawing's left side, who he dressed in a contemporay garment. Thus the figure reappears in a similar position in Boucher's painting "Le Bonheur de Village" in the Bayrische Staatsfgemäldesammlungen, München) The study on the right hand side of the sheet reappears almost verbatim in Boucher's Landscape with Washerwoman  at aFountain (Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand). Executed most likely in Rome between 1728 and 1730.