Jean-Baptiste Pierre

Study for « The Chinese Masquerade » by Jean-Baptiste Pierre (1714 - 1789)

1735

This study presents a typical Roman countryside landscape: an ancient mausoleum in front of which a cart is passing by followed by two peasants. If the technique (a pen drawing on graphite lines, completed with a wash of brown and grey inks) and the signature inevitably evoke the art of Lorrain, we find on the verso of this drawing additional evidences that lead us to consider this unpublished drawing as a work by the master. The motif of the mausoleum has been taken up in pen on the verso in a technique that can be found in several other drawings by Lorrain. There is also a study of three characters, which can be considered as preparatory to Lorrain’s painting entitled The Port of Ostia with the Embarkation of Saint Paula, leading us to claim this attribution with a dating of around 1629. 1. Claude Lorrain or the perfection of classical landscape in Rome in the 17th century Claude Gellée was born in 1600 in Chamagne in Lorraine. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he spent a year with his brother in Freiburg, where the latter was a woodcarver. Claude Gellée then probably arrived in Rome in 1613, where he joined the workshop of Agostino Tassi (1580 - 1644) in 1617. Between 1619 and 1620 he studied for two years in Naples in the workshop of Goffredi Wals (who was himself a former pupil of Tassi). In 1625 he returned to Lorraine for two years where he worked alongside Claude Deruet. He then returned to Rome, a city he never left for the rest of his life (except for short trips to the surrounding countryside). From 1627 to 1650 he lived in Via Margutta. From 1635 onwards he became a renowned painter and commissions started to pour in. Considered during his lifetime as the most accomplished of the classical landscape painters, his reputation never faded. Between 1629 and 1635 Le Lorrain often went to the Roman countryside to draw with his friend Joachim von Sandrart (1606 - 1686). He became a member of the Academy of Saint Luke in 1633, while being closely acquainted with the Bentvueghels, this guild which brought together the young Nordic painters active in Rome. In 1643 he joined the Congregation of the Virtuosi. In 1650 he moved to Via Paolina where he lived until his death. Little is known of his intimate life. He seems to have had a daughter, Agnes, from an ancillary love affair. In 1657/ 1658 she moved in with him. Stricken with gout in 1663, he died in 1682. 2. Description of the drawing; the technique of nature studies Two peasants are walking behind a horse-drawn cart on a road that winds through ancient tombs. While a rectangular tomb with a columned facade can be seen in the distance, the cart passes an important ancient building. It has a circular shape and its partially ruined façade is decorated with columns. The start of a second floor can...

This landscape, masterfully executed in pen and wash by Louis-Jean Desprez around 1779, probably represents a view of the Roman countryside. The treatment of the trees is very similar to that of two engravings which Desprez executed in Rome, The Island of Cythera and The Temple of Love. 1. Louis-Jean Desprez, a cosmopolitan life between Italy and Sweden Born in Auxerre in 1743, Louis-Jean Desprez probably began his apprenticeship with the engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin...

This brilliant study sheet, of which we present here a counterproof, is a souvenir of Fragonard's return journey from Italy. Between April and September 1761, he accompanied the abbot of Saint-Non on his way back to France. Three studies after the masters taken from the Pitti Palace’s gallery in Florence are gathered on this sheet. Although The Ecstasy of Saint Margaret...

This drawing full of freshness presents us with the profile of an elegant lady, drawn by Augustin de Saint-Aubin on a beautiful summer day in 1776, during the early months of Louis X...

This intensely expressive figure is a preparatory study for "Arab Market on the Tocria Plain", a painting exhibited at the 1865 Salon and now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille. 1...

No Dutch draughtsman ever captured the atmosphere of the rural countryside of Holland with the same atmospheric and engaging simplicity that Van Goyen achieved in drawings such as this. Indeed, his landscapes were seminal in the development of the genre. The present sketch conveys a striking sense of movement within the natural landscape, conveyed by the deftly applied strokes of chalk, from which the artist’s hand can be sensed. The composition is characteristic of his work, with the low horizon affording significance to the broad sky and the soaring birds within. This feeling of windswept motion powerfully evokes the expansive Dutch farmland with which he was evidently preoccupied. 1. Jan van Goyen...

Black crayon and graphite with white heightening on blue handmade laid paper. Adhered at all four corners to a period support, on which the title and an illegible date (perhaps 1815) appear to be written in the artist's hand. ________ Aglio was born in Cremona is 1777 and his artistic talent was recognized early in his life. He was promised a place at the University in Milan by the Holy Roman Emperor, however, his formal education was upended before it even began by the invasion of Italy and Austria by Napoleon. Aglio joined the war effort and fought in a series of major battles near Venice before becoming seriously ill. At the age of about 23 he was released from duty, and traveled to Rome to focus on his health, and landscape painting. In Rome, Aglio studied with the renowned artist Campovecchio. At the invitation of well known British architect William Wilkins (designer of the National Gallery and University College London), Aglio relocated to London in 1803. He made London his permanent home, and married Letitia Clarke in 1805. He enjoyed a lucrative career painting frescoes in the interiors of high society townhouses, country manors, and major London concert halls and theaters. Most notably, Aglio painted multiple official portraits of Queen Victoria...

FRANÇOIS MATHURIN ADALBERT, BARON DE COURCY (1805-1839) 'Le Negrito à l’ancre. Dans le port de la havanne' Indistinctly signed lower left Titled on the mount Pencil and watercolour, heightened with white, on paper, 24.8 x 34.6 cm Literature: The present watercolour will be illustrated in: - Prof. Manuel Garcia’s projected book on the disease and the slave trade provisionally titled “Fighting the Yellow Demon of Fever: The Struggle against Disease in the Illegal Slave Trade”. - Prof. Micael Zeuske’s forthcoming Global history of slave trade. Exhibited: Mexico City, 1998, Palacio Virreinal, El Barón de Courcy, illustrationes de un viaje, 1831-1833, no. 108 Note: Baron de Courcy was in the Caribbean in late 1832 and early 1833, following his tour of Mexico in 1832, on the last leg of his “Grand Voyage...

Chateau fort is an original pencil drawing on paper by Horace Vernet realized in XIX century. Certified by Paul Proutè. Very good conditions, except for a very little rip on the lef...

Landscape is a beautiful dranwing in watercolor and pencil on ivory-colored paper realized by Jan Peter Verdussen. In good condition; only a sma...

Rome is a beautiful artwork realized by Jan Peter Verdussen in 1741. In good condition except for some pencil marks and traces of sealing wax on the back and some diffused foxings. ...

Landscape is a beautiful drawing in pencil and watercolor on paper realized by Jan Peter Verdussen in 1745 ca. In good condition, excpet for some foxing on the right. The artwork r...