A la pagode (At the pagode), Trade card of Edme Gersaint
Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières, comte de Caylus French
After François Boucher French
Boucher designed this trade card for the merchant Gersaint (1694–1750) in 1740. Gersaint’s shop on the Pont Notre-Dame specialized in curios from the Far East, natural-history specimens, and various decorative and utilitarian objects. From the sale of Boucher’s estate, we know that he had extensive collections of shells and Chinese porcelain and was thus himself presumably a customer of the shop.
The card functions, in a sense, as publicity for both men as Boucher was, at the same moment, a catalyst and leading figure in the growing taste for chinoiserie (European images of China). His drawings, prints, and tapestries spread the aesthetic throughout France and beyond.
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