Biography of Louis-Léopold Boilly
Louis-Léopold Boilly, born July 5, 1761 in La Bassée and died January 4, 1845 in Paris, was a French painter, miniaturist and engraver renowned for his scenes of post-revolutionary Parisian life and his numerous small-format portraits.
Boilly came from a modest background and was the son of a woodcarver. Raised in Douai, he received his first painting lessons from Charles-Alexandre-Joseph Caullet until the age of 17. He continued his training in trompe-l'oeil in Arras under Dominique Doncre, before settling in Paris in 1785. In Paris, he became known as a portrait painter, an activity that allowed him to live. Between 1789 and 1791, he completed a series of commissions for the Avignon collector Esprit Calvet. His first period was marked by a style influenced by Greuze and Fragonard, but he gradually incorporated the precision of the 17th-century Dutch masters.
Boilly made his first appearance at the Salon in 1791, where he was recognized for his portraits, trompe-l'oeil paintings, and genre scenes with gallant or bawdy themes. In 1794, he faced accusations of obscenity from the Société populaire et républicaine des Arts. To defend himself, he invited agents of the Committee of Public Safety to his studio and presented them with patriotic works, including a Triumph of Marat, which he had created for a competition by the revolutionary government.
His meticulously observed works capture the diversity of urban life between the revolutionary period and the Restoration. Highly appreciated by the public, Boilly received a gold medal at the Salon of 1804. In 1823, he produced a series of humorous lithographs entitled *Les Grimaces*. Named a knight of the Legion of Honor and a member of the Institut de France in 1833, Boilly left behind a corpus of approximately 4,500 portraits (of which only a tenth survive) and 500 genre scenes. His work, less in vogue after the Restoration, is today valued for its documentary interest, offering a unique view of daily life at a time when official painting focused on battles and coronations.
Married in 1787 to Marie-Madeleine Desligne, then in 1795 to Adélaïde-Françoise Leduc after the death of his first wife, Boilly was the father of six sons. Three of them, Julien Léopold (1796–1874), Édouard (1799–1854) and Alphonse Léopold (1801–1867), also pursued artistic careers.
