Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Edme Bouchardon's Vade Mecum

025. Volume I, folio 21 recto
026. Volume I, folio 22 recto
027. Volume I, folio 23 recto
028. Volume I, folio 24 recto
029. Volume I, folio 25 recto
030. Volume I, folio 26 recto
031. Volume I, folio 27 recto
032. Volume I, folio 28 recto
033. Volume I, folio 29 recto
034. Volume I, folio 30 recto
035. Volume I, folio 31 recto
036. Volume I, folio 32 recto

Edme Bouchardon (Chaumont-en-Bassigny 1698–1762 Paris) was one of the greatest sculptors during the reign of Louis XV (r. 1715–74) and one of the most prolific and talented draftsmen of eighteenth-century France. The Morgan’s two-volume Vade Mecum (“Come with me”) sketchbook contains no fewer than 111 drawings, made mostly in red chalk, as well as a partial third volume of drawings in black chalk by another hand. The drawings, made by Bouchardon in Rome, are mostly copies of sculptural and architectural elements from around the city, while some are creative inventions and preparatory commissions that the artist tried to secure.