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- 3 - playing with simple nature and discarded the gorgeous brocades for printed cotton fabrics. Jean Baptiste Huet (1745-1811), chief designer of the Manufacture de Jouy, was requested by the Beauvais director, de Menou, to adapt the Boucher pastoral designs to the taste of his generation. The cartoons of the Pastorales à décor de palmiers which were woven at Beauvais between 1780 and 1785, either à fond rose or à draperies bleues, are therefore the joint creation of Boucher and Huet. It is difficult to talk of the four tapestries Pastorales à fond rose Dubarry without constantly using superlatives. The set is one of the finest specimens of the weaver's craft, the colors have retained their pristine glamour, and the compositions are an endless delight. Each panel shows a vista into a bright landscape with a wide, tender, blue sky, framed by two palm trees with branches meeting overhead. Rainbow-hued hollyhocks cling to the palms and flowers manyfold hang in crowns and garlands from the trees. No border is required, the picture stands out on a ground of deep, mellow, rose color. We see the idealized peasant girls and boys in their harmless pursuit of pleasure. The Birdsnarer combines two scenes: a girl holds ready a small cage for the fledgelings which her friend is robbing from the nest, while the old birds flutter in dismay; a seated shepherdess with a pet lamb looks at her impetuous swain thoughtfully, perhaps like Phyllis who was "plus avare que tendre" and made her beau Leandre pay "trente moutons pour un baiser". Cherry-Gatherings is a parallel composition; a boy on a ladder hands bunches of cherries to two girls with baskets and skirts upheld, while a little boy feeds cherries to some greedy chickens. Though perhaps not as spirited as the former, this composition has a graceful appeal and the color-scheme is especially charming. The Swing shows a little spaniel barking furiously at a boy seated on a beribboned swing; the landscape background is more elaborate than in the other panels. The last tapestry boasts a much more elaborate composition. The field is
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