74 FRANCOIS BOUCHER The figure appears in reverse, with a large musical score propped up in his lap, in the French, 1703­1770 right foreground of the tapestry The Charlatan and the Peep Show, where he is one of Reclining Guitar Player a trio of figures, the two others being a young couple who study another musical score Black, red, and white chalk on from which they are about to sing. Boucher has drawn the youth with the reversal in light­blue paper mind, since he has shown him with the stem of the guitar in his right hand instead of 27.9 x 44.1 cm (11 x 17 in.) Cat. I, no. 60; 83.GB.359 his left so that the instrument would be held correctly when the figure was transposed in the finished tapestry (for an explanation of the reversal of tapestry designs as part of the process of transfer, see no. 11). The trois crayons technique (see no. 73) is attractively handled on a light­blue paper background. The Charlatan and the Peep Show is the first in a series of fourteen tapestries known as Les Fetes italiennes or Les Fetes de village a l'italienne, which the artist designed between 1734 and 1746. The composition shows a charlatan or saltimbank on a stage among ruins selling potions, aided by a woman accomplice with a monkey. To the right of the stage is a peep show, while in the foreground are desultory groups of figures, including children and the group of singers already mentioned. Boucher was one of the great decorative painters of the French Rococo. In 1723 he went to Rome to study at the French Academy. On his return to France in 1731 he quickly gained the favor of the French court, including the powerful Mme de Pompadour, Louis XV's mistress. 90 FRENCH SCHOOL