Oil Painting, 'The Embarkation: an 18th Century Costume Piece', François Bocion, Swiss school, 1848

A group of ladies and a gentlemen in 18th-century costume boarding a canopied gondola morred at the bottom of a flight of steps leading down to a canal.

Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend

Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, listed in the 1868 post-mortem register of the contents of his villa in Lausanne (V&A R/F MA/1/T1181) as 'Oil on Millboard. The Embarkation. By F. Bocion. Signed. Swiss. Dated 184[8?]'; bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, 1868.

Historical significance: This painting is one of a group of 16 paintings bequeathed to the museum by the Rev. Townshend who had a villa in Lausanne where he spent the winter.
This painting is a fine example of costume pieces Bocion produced at the beginning of his career. The date suggests that he executed this painting in Paris where he resided between 1845 and 1849. Bocion made his artistic debut as a history painter under the influence in Paris of such artists as Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). The present painting shows Venetians aristocrats in 18th-century costumes on a gondola at the entrance of a palace in Venice or most likely on the Brenta river where Venetians usually retired during the summer.
Similar compositions include: Women in 18th-century costumes, Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Druey in the abbey-church of Payerne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne.
Upon his return to Lausanne in 1849, Bocion would soon give up this subject matter to concentrate on peaceful scenes set by the Lake Leman in Switzerland.
This painting was probably bought by the Rev. Townshend directly from the artist and displayed in his villa in Lausanne where it completed there a large collection of 19th-century landscapes paintings. The Victoria and Albert Museum owns the most comprehensive group of Bocion's paintings in the U.K.

François Bocion (1828-1890) was born in Lausanne. He first trained with Christian Gottlieb Steinlen (1779-1847) in Vevey and subsequently with François Bonnet (1811-1894) in Lausanne. In Paris in 1845, Bocion entered the atelier of Louis-Aimé Grosclaude (1784-1869) and later that of Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) and befriended Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and other important exponents of the Realist movement. Back in Lausanne in 1849 he became a teacher at the Ecole moyenne et industrielle of Lausane, a position he held until his death. At the same time, he had an extensive output with several travels abroad. He exhibited in Paris, Vienna, Anvers, London and was a founder member of the Swiss society of watercolorists (1884).

This painting is a fine example of Bocion's history paintings and costume pieces he produced very early in his career. It shows some Venetians aristocrats on a gondola docked at the entrance of the park of a villa. Bocion produced relatively few similar compositions and soon specialised in what would become the main thematic of his oeuvre: views in the surroundings of the Lake Leman.

1592-1869