When The setting of the sun was first exhibited in 1752, it formed one half of a celebrated pair commissioned by Madame de Pompadour, the influential mistress of Louis XV and a tireless patron of the arts. Boucher’s two canvases—The rising of the sun and The setting of the sun—were intended as allegories of the day’s passage, destined for the private apartments at the Château de Bellevue. Their sensual mythologies and luminous palette perfectly matched Madame de Pompadour’s taste, which shaped the look of the French court and the Rococo movement itself. In The setting of the sun, Boucher captures the mythic moment when Apollo, god of the sun, descends from his chariot to the embrace of Thetis, goddess of the sea, as evening falls.

The god’s golden horses, exhausted and steaming, plunge into the waves, while nymphs and tritons swirl around the foaming surf. The lush pinks and blues of the sky, the tumbling bodies, and the scattering of pearls and shells all signal the union of day and night, light and water. Boucher’s treatment is more playful and decorative than earlier interpretations, such as Guido Reni’s solemn Aurora, favoring sensuality and movement over solemn grandeur. The original commission for The setting of the sun was executed in oil on canvas, though the precise medium of this version is not always specified in records.

After delighting the royal apartments, the painting’s fate followed the turbulence of French history: it passed through Revolutionary seizures, entered the Louvre’s collection, and later inspired countless tapestry and porcelain adaptations. Today, the painting is recognized as a high point of François Boucher’s mature style, encapsulating the Rococo’s love of myth, pleasure, and theatricality—an enduring testament to the tastes of mid-eighteenth-century Paris.