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

157. Volume III, folio 31 recto
158. Volume III, folio 32 recto
159. Volume III, folio 33 recto
160. Volume III, folio 34 recto
161. Volume III, folio 35 recto
162. Volume III, folio 38 recto
163. Volume III, folio 39 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.