Ask the Scholar

{
    "localId": "150501",
    "label": "The Departure of Jacob",
    "core": "obj",
    "dtoType": "drawing"
}

{
    "id": "150501",
    "contentType": "drawing",
    "title": "The Departure of Jacob",
    "description": "François Boucher was known for romantic, idealized pastoral scenes and produced relatively few religious works. This drawing, however, is believed to relate to the Old Testament story in which Jacob travels to Canaan with his family. Boucher used a limited palette of brown, red, and black to create dramatic shadows and highlights. The family is seen basking in the dappled sunlight that illuminates the mother and her baby as they rest beneath a palm tree. The sheet may have served as a preparatory study for a similar painting by Boucher that is lost today and known only through a reproductive engraving by the printmaker Elisabeth Cousinet-Lempereur.",
    "date": "c. 1755",
    "citation": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.58",
    "rights": "CC0",
    "rightsUri": "CC0",
    "language": "en",
    "wikidata": [
        "Q79933045"
    ],
    "creators": [
        1888
    ],
    "genreSpecific": [
        "Drawing"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.58/1981.58_web.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.58/1981.58_web.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.58/1981.58_web.jpg",
    "imageCount": 1,
    "source": "import",
    "dimensionsRaw": "Sheet: 34.8 x 23.1 cm (13 11/16 x 9 1/8 in.)",
    "cul": [
        "France, 18th century"
    ],
    "accession": "1981.58"
}

{
    "tec": "Pen and brown-black ink, brown ink wash, and red chalk wash, with black chalk on cream laid paper",
    "tombstone": "The Departure of Jacob, c. 1755. François Boucher (French, 1703–1770). Pen and brown-black ink, brown ink wash, and red chalk wash, with black chalk on cream laid paper; sheet: 34.8 x 23.1 cm (13 11/16 x 9 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds, 1981.58",
    "supportMaterials": [
        {
            "description": "cream(3) laid paper"
        }
    ],
    "collection": "DR - French",
    "inscriptions": [
        {
            "inscription": "ON THREE SEPERATELY APPLIED PIECES OF PAPER (now removed and in departmental file), inscribed in black ink: T[illegible] / Dessin à la[illegible] / Boucher - [illegible] / chez Paulme [illegible] 19[illegible] / [illegible] ; printed in black ink: THOS [S superscript] AGNEW & SONS LTD [TD superscript] / Nº 44133 / LONDON, / 43 OLD BOND STREET / PICCADILLY, W1X 4BA ; printed in black ink: Place de la Borde, Nº 2, près St [t superscript]-Augustin / ALEXANDRE / JOUANEST / DOREUR / Fabricant de bordures dorées / pour tableaux, estampes, / glaces, gouaches et des- / sins, et se charge de / l'encadrement. / A PARIS."
        }
    ],
    "didYouKnow": "The gesture between the couple in this drawing -- in which the man offers the woman a pear -- is seen in several other works by François Boucher.",
    "citations": [
        {
            "citation": "Ananoff, Alexandre. <em>François Boucher</em>. Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1976.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: vol. I, pp. 171-172, under no. 34"
        },
        {
            "citation": "<em>Master Drawings</em>. London: Thos. Agnew &amp; Sons Ltd., 1977.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: no. 32"
        },
        {
            "citation": "\"The Year in Review for 1981.\" <em>Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em> (February 1982): 41-80.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 41, 80; Reproduced: p. 49"
        },
        {
            "citation": "Goldfarb, Hilliard T. \"Boucher's <em>Pastoral Scene with Family at Rest </em>and the Image of the Pastoral in Eighteenth-Century France.\" <em>Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>  (March 1984): 82-89.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned and reproduce: pp. 82-89"
        },
        {
            "citation": "Laing, Alastair. \"Boucher et la pastorale peinte.\" <em>Revue de l'art</em> 73 (1986): 55-64.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 61 n. 3"
        },
        {
            "citation": "<em>Dessins français des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles du Musée de Picardie</em>. Exh. Cat. Amiens: Musée de Picardie, 1997.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 50, under no. 1"
        },
        {
            "citation": "DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. <em>Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art</em>. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.",
            "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 10, pp. 102-103, 288, no. 37; Reproduced: p. 103"
        }
    ],
    "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1981.58",
    "creditline": "Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds",
    "updatedAt": "2026-05-29 07:45:54.585000",
    "imageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.58/1981.58_print.jpg",
    "sourceId": 150501,
    "dept": "Drawings",
    "coll": "DR - French",
    "med": "Pen and brown-black ink, brown ink wash, and red chalk wash, with black chalk on cream laid paper",
    "creatorTags": [
        "male"
    ],
    "thumbnail_url": null,
    "image_url": null
}

{
    "seq": 1,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1981.58/1981.58_web.jpg",
    "mediaId": "9feada6218c26059"
}