Francois Boucher, a French Artist in the Kingdom of Denmark

The exhibition Francois Boucher. Fragments of a World Picture, presented by the Holtegaard foundation in the former country house of Baroque architect Lauritz de Thurah, in Holte (Denmark), in 2012, brought together some hundred drawings, paintings and engravings by Boucher, including many unpublished works. It sought primarily to show Boucher's major influence in certain fields notably, chinoiserie, mythological subjects and children both in tapestry (of which the Danes were the biggest patrons in the eighteenth century) and in porcelain and interior decors. The decoration of the royal palace of Amalienborg is one of the most important surviving works. The article examines in detail Francois Boucher's contribution to the now vanished decoration of the palaces of Christiansborg and Bernstorff, in Copenhagen, as well as Amalienborg, showing that he tailored his working methods to the size of the commission. The artist's links with Danish diplomatic staff in Paris, especially with Joachim Wasserschlebe, and more broadly speaking, the Danes' taste for his work, find an echo in the unpublished drawings by Boucher now in the Statens Museum for Kunst, in Copenhagen.