Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells

A CLOSER LOOK

The museum identifies this drawing as Black chalk with stumping, and red chalk, heightened with white chalk on beige laid paper and credits François Boucher (French, 1703–1770).

The museum's collection notes: In this early chalk drawing, François Boucher combined plants, dolphins, rocks, shells, and tritons (mythological creatures that are part man and part fish) into a design that was meant to suggest a fountain in a rocky garden grotto. This sheet represents l'art rocaille, or "rock and shell art," a style of ornament that developed in France during the 1730s and featured decorative compositions with abundant detail. The image was one of seven that the printmaker Gabriel Huquier translated as etchings around the time Boucher completed them. These reproductions helped to bring Boucher's work to a broader audience, including other artists who emul