WORKS by the acclaimed eighteenth century artist Franois Boucher go on show this weekend in a another major exhibition at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle.

The museum owns a magnificent landscape by Boucher (1707-70) which is one of only four landscapes by him in public collections in the British Isles. The one at the Bowes is the largest and most spectacular, depicting a highly-lit imaginary scene with women washing clothes by a watermill.

Boucher was court painter to the French King Louis XV, and favourite painter of the King's mistress Madame de Pompadour. For them, he painted many pictures of nymphs, cupids and shepherds and shepherdesses, which are seen today as typical of French art of the period.

He was also a great master of artificial landscape, showing everyday folk in idyllic rural surroundings, and the Bowes example typifies this by mixing classical ruins with an elegant run-down cottage.

The exhibition gathers together landscape paintings and drawings by Boucher and his contemporaries, including works by Hubert Robert (1733-1808), Jean-Baptiste Pillement (1728-1808), Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-77), and Jean-Honor Fragonard (1732-1806).

Howard Coutts, curator, said: "We are thrilled to have this important exhibition of French landscape painters at the Bowes Museum. It illustrates their debt to Dutch and Italian sources, and is a rare chance to see works by these major French eighteenth century painters together."

The exhibition has been curated by paintings curator Jo Hedley of the Wallace Collection, London, which has the largest collection of Boucher's work in the world.

The Wallace Collection is also celebrating the work of Boucher in an exhibition entitled Boucher: Seductive Visions which sets the art of Boucher in its artistic and historic context.

The exhibition opens tomorrow and runs until March 27 (daily from 11am-5pm).