Boucher
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRANÇOIS (bö-chā'), a French painter, was born in Paris, ris, Sept. 29, 1703; studied at Rome, and became a member of the Academy (1734), and painter to Louis XV. (1765). He was an artist of much ability, and equally facile in the production of figure or landscape pictures. The number of his pictures and drawings is said to have exceeded 10,000; he also executed engravings. At his death, May 30, 1770, he was Director of the French Academy. BOUCHER DE CRÈVECŒUR DE PERTHES, JACQUES (bö-shā de krāvker de pārt'), a French anthropologist and writer, born in Réthel, Sept. 10, 1788. Through his father, an active botanist, he came under the notice of Napoleon, and was employed in numerous missions to Italy, Germany, Austria, and Hungary. From the Restoration he lived at Abbeville and there he died, Aug. 5, 1868. Only his works on the archæology of The first, man are of consequence now. "On the Creation" (5 vols., 1839-1841), already brought him some reputation, but his long investigations on stone weapons and other remains of early human civilization in the Tertiary and older Quaternary Diluvial strata made him famous. Other works of great value are "Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities" (3 vols., 1846-1865), and "Antediluvian Man and His Works" (1860). BOUCHES-DU-RHÔNE (bösh-dü-rōn; " Mouths of the Rhône "), a department of the S. of France, in ancient Provence, Chief town, Marseilles. Area, 1,971 square miles. The Rhone is the principal river. The climate is generally very warm; but the department is liable to the mistral, a cold and violent N. E. wind from the Cevennes ranges. Much of the soil is unfruitful, but the fine climate makes the cultivation of figs, olives, nuts, almonds, etc., successful. The factures are principally soap, brandy, olive oil, chemicals, vinegar, scent, leather, glass, etc. The fisheries are nuand productive. Pop. about merous 806,000.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's wrote in 1921 that Boucher de Perthes's Abbeville stone tools came from "Tertiary and older Quaternary Diluvial strata"; the deep antiquity of man he fought for is now accepted, but the dating has been corrected — the handaxes belong to the Quaternary alone, and the Lower Palaeolithic industry he helped bring to light is called Acheulean after Saint-Acheul near Amiens. His reputation also survived the Moulin-Quignon affair of 1863, when a human jaw produced at his diggings turned out to have been planted by workmen. François Boucher stood in 1921 as "an artist of much ability", faint praise by the standards of a century in which Rococo painting was rehabilitated and his canvases became star attractions in the Louvre, the Wallace Collection and the Frick. Bouches-du-Rhône, given as about 806,000 people, now holds over two million and is the most populous department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, with Marseilles a container port rather than a centre of soap and scent.
Written for this edition, 2026.