The Movings
Louis-Léopold Boilly (French, 1761–1845)
1822
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 73 × 92 cm (28 3/4 × 36 1/8 in.); Framed: 94 × 113.4 cm (37 × 44 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Harold L. Stuart Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This slickly painted street scene uses the housing crisis of post-Revolutionary Paris, which forced poor people to move frequently in search of affordable homes, as a metaphor for other “movings” in life, particularly the transition from life to death. At center, a carriage loaded with furniture transports a young woman with her baby while, to their right, a black hearse moves towards the ethereal Roman church in the distance. The artist crossing the scene, easel in hand, just behind the horse may allude to the transient nature of such work, which often included travel between Rome and Paris.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
