The Card Sharp on the Boulevard is an oil on panel genre painting by the French artist Louis-Léopold Boilly, from 1806.Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century. National Gallery of Art, 2000. p.50Eitner p.3 It is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, in Washington.
It depicts a scene on the Boulevard du Temple in Napoleonic era Paris, with a conjuror or card sharp on the right, entertaining a crowd. A group of children and women seem to be vividly interested by the tricksters actions. The artist added a self-portrait of himself in a bicorne hat amongst the group of spectators.
Boilly exhibited the painting at the Salon of 1808 at the Louvre, along with a pendant piece Young Savoyards Showing Their Marmot.Bailey p.348 It was also displayed at the Salon of 1814, which was hastily organised following the Bourbon Restoration.
References
Bibliography Bailey, Colin B. The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting. Yale University Press, 2003. Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century: Before impressionism. National Gallery of Art, 2000.