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Louis-Léopold Boilly

The Arcades at the Palais-Royal

c. 1804
Pen and black ink, and brush and gray wash, with gray gouache, over black chalk, on ivory laid paper
36.5 × 45.7 cm (14.4 × 18 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This remarkably frank image flouted the norms of acceptable subject matter. Here, Boilly depicted the prostitutes—and the men who solicited them—who gathered in the arcade of the Palais-Royal in Paris. Better known for his charming genre paintings, Boilly was denounced in 1793 by a French revolutionary tribunal for painting pictures “of revolting obscenity to republican morals.” He survived and even in 1804, under the Napoleonic government’s somewhat looser standards, he was pushing the boundaries of propriety.

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