A wooded landscape with buildings in the distance

Alexandre Ananoff considered this painting to be a project for a stage set, and intended to publish it in the supplement to his catalogue of the works of Francois Boucher, which was sadly never completed. In his opinion, the small figure in the center is the work of the studio, but the hand of Boucher can perhaps be seen in the landscape. Boucher's reinvention of the pastoral was one of his most original contributions in shaping the artistic movement that we can loosely call the Rococo. This was a form that was closely connected to contemporary comic operas, especially those produced by Boucher's friend Charles-Simon Favart for the Théâtre de la Foire, for which he occasionally produced stage and costume designs.