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Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
François Girardon (1628-1715) · c. 1680-1705
The poet and critic Nicolas Boileau, author of The Art of Poetry and scourge of bad writers, is shown in a soft cap and open collar rather than the formal wig of a courtier. Girardon catches the sharp, ironic expression of the satirist: the narrowed eyes, the long nose, the mouth about to deliver a verdict. Boileau was a friend of Racine and Molière and the official historiographer of Louis the Fourteenth, and this is the image of him that generations of French readers came to know.
The bust was carved by Girardon, the leading sculptor of the reign, some time between about 1680 and 1705, while the poet was still alive. It belonged to Évrard Titon du Tillet, the collector who dreamed of a French Parnassus honouring the writers and musicians of the age of Louis the Fourteenth, and the number seventy-one on the pedestal recalls an old collection inventory. Alexandre Lenoir bought it in 1802 for his Museum of French Monuments, and when that museum closed the bust was assigned to the Louvre in 1817, entering the following year.
Did You Know? The bust once belonged to Titon du Tillet, who planned a mountain-sized monument to the poets of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth.
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