PROPERTY FROM THE RICHARD MILHENDER COLLECTION A Chinese reverse glass painting, L'obeissance rpense (Obedience Rewarded)Probably late 18th century, after an engraving by Rene Gaillard based an oil painting by Francois Boucher Depicting a pastoral scene with a young farm hand in a semi-recumbent pose leaning against two wheat sheaves, with his left hand raised, to feed a dog a small treat, whilst an elegantly attired young lady leans against a sculptural water-fountain with putti and watches the dog raised on its rear haunches awaiting the tidbit, all set in a wooded landscape. 21in (53.3cm); 15in (38cm) excluding original gilt wood frame 或爲十八世紀晚期 中國畫派 外銷聖經故事玻璃畫 Provenance: Jeremy Ltd, London, September 1987 The Richard Milhender Collection, Boston, Massachusetts, 1987-present 出處： 倫敦 Jeremy Ltd，1987 年九月 麻州波士頓 Richard Milhender 藏，1987 年至今 This charming painting would have been copied by a Chinese artist from the well-known engraving entitled L'obeissance rpense , (Obedience rewarded) by the print maker Rene Gaillard (c. 1719-1790) based on an oil painting by the celebrated artist Francois Boucher (1703-1770) now in the Musee Des Beaux-Arts, Nimes. Gaillard produced a series of pastoral scenes after Francois Boucher and Charles D. Eisen and they appear to have been especially favored as subjects for China trade paintings, though the subjects are symbolic rather than literal, an allegory on the power of love and devotion. Interestingly the colors on the engraving, which are similarly used on the reverse glass painting, differ from the colors used in the original painting. The young resting laborer wears a vivid coral red waistcoat in the original and leans against a satchel or bag, rather than wheat sheaves. The young lady, possibly his belle , wears a similarly décolleté dress but painted in a soft pinkish blush rather than the deep marine-blue of the reverse glass version and colored engraving. In an article by Olivier von Elt entitled 'A Taste and Talent for Treasures: Kollenburg Antiquairs' published in /nl/magazine/articles/007abaeab8f0, the author illustrates two similar reverse glass paintings, one after Boucher, the other after Eisen, both depicting intimate pastoral scenes with young couples. The difficulty in painting reverse glass images is more easily grasped when one understands that the image must be applied directly on the glass and therefore in the reverse order to that of an oil on canvas, with foreground details applied first, and with each depth of surface plain added in an unnatural reverse layering, ending with the undersurface of the painting. In the 18th and early 19th century, a thriving export market existed for Chinese reverse glass paintings. European traders supplied Chinese artists with prints with western subjects, to be copied in bright and splendid colors on glass. Artists, working in and around Guangzhou (Canton), meticulously copied Europe