(Villefranche 1769–1825 Perpignan)
Italian mountain landscape with shepherds and their herds, an ancient city in the background,
signed lower right: Boher,
oil on canvas, 113 x 80 cm, framed

Boher belongs to a group of landscape painters active at the turn of the 19th century, including Charles Lacroix de Marseille and Claudot de Nancy. Boher was indebted to an elegant landscape tradition, which was founded a generation prior by Claude Joseph Vernet, above all. That his preserved oeuvre is relatively small can probably be explained by the fact that Boher limited himself to the province, while other artists worked and exhibited in the artistic centres of France. He spent the majority of his career in Perpignan, where he was president of the Academy until 1804. That his talent would have certainly been sufficient in order to persue a lucrative career either in Paris or at the courts of Europe, is evident not only in the completion and elegance of his works, for which the present painting is exemplary, but also in the reactions of his contemporaries. When Jacques-Louis David saw some of Boher’s works during one of his rare visits to Paris, he remarked: “Quel malheur que ces talents et cette étude végètent, soient ignorés et perdus dans un coin du monde!” Boher’s production was also influenced by international models such as Jakob Philipp Hackert, whose heroic landscapes he saw in Rome, where he was in contact, and collaborated, with many German artists who lived there towards the end of the 18th century. Shortly before the French revolution, a wealthy patron, a Knight of the Order of Malta who had recognised the young artist’s extraordinary talent, sent him to Spain and Italy and declared his willingness to support his further training.
Boher is a typical representative of the Classicist movement and embodies the ideals of his time: his landscapes are compositionally well thought-out and elegant, still shorn of the Romanticism of the following generation. The works of this genre executed during his later phase are characteristed by a distinctive naturalism.