Edme Bouchardon (Chaumont-en-Bassigny 1698–1762 Paris) was one of the greatest sculptors during the reign of Louis XV (r. 1715–74) and one of the most prolific and talented draftsmen of eighteenth-century France. The Morgan’s two-volume Vade Mecum (“Come with me”) sketchbook contains no fewer than 111 drawings, made mostly in red chalk, as well as a partial third volume of drawings in black chalk by another hand. The drawings, made by Bouchardon in Rome, are mostly copies of sculptural and architectural elements from around the city, while some are creative inventions and preparatory commissions that the artist tried to secure.
Edme Bouchardon (1698–1762)
Vade Mecum at Rome, 1723–32
146 drawings, largely in red chalk, with some in pen and brown ink or black chalk, bound in limp vellum
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1907
2006.16:1–3
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