Lovers Surprised (Annette et Lubin)

François Boucher

early 1760s

Brown and black chalk, with touches of brown wash on paper

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A man and woman embrace in a wooded setting, with a figure playing a flute in the background and a sheep in the foreground. In François Boucher’s world, gods and goddesses, shepherds and shepherdesses, voluptuous nymphs, enchanting peasants, dewy adolescents, and adorable winged infants cannot help but fall in love. This highly finished sheet from his later years demonstrates Boucher’s ability to interpret with freshness and tenderness the intimate moments shared by lovers. The subjects have been identified as Annette and Lubin, characters from a story by Jean-François Marmontel popularized in a comic opera in 1762. Orphaned cousins, living together in an alpine hamlet, the two innocently fall in love, make love, and then are comically unaware of the res