SAINT-AUBIN, Gabriel de
(b. 1724, Paris, d. 1780, Paris)

A Street Show in Paris (La Parade du Boulevard)

1760
Oil on canvas, 80 x 64 cm
National Gallery, London

Saint-Aubin is most familiar from engravings and drawings, but his few surviving paintings have individuality and highly personal charm. La Parade du Boulevard is full of surprising colour notes, and even the angle of the composition is faintly unexpected. The tall arching trees which frame the street show, the energetic player duellists, and the slender spectators have passed beyond the topical into a realm of enchanted genre. The woman with a parasol who leans from a balcony is brushed in with a felicity which reveals the influence of Boucher.