The Bird Catchers

Young couples in exquisite finery play at catching small birds before the ruins of the Temple of Vesta, a pastoral courtship scene in which the caged or tethered bird stood for a heart captured by love. François Boucher made the composition for the *Noble Pastorales*, a tapestry series woven at Beauvais, and this finished cartoon or modello pairs with its pendant, *The Fountain of Love*, also in the Getty collection. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.