Johannes Christianus Schotel

19th C Dutch Old Master Drawing Johannes Christiaan Schotel Study of Seated Man

circa 1800

We would like to thank Juliette Parmentier-Courreau of the Custodia Foundation for her welcome and support during the consultation of Glomy’s Journal des Ouvrages. This spectacularly large "feuille de desseins ajustés" commissioned by François Boucher from Jean-Baptiste Glomy is emblematic of the painter's art and mastery of rocaille. It is also fully representative of the taste of this period in the field of decorative arts. The largest of these three drawings, placed at the bottom of the composition, is particularly interesting: dating from around 1756, it constitutes a modello (apparently unpublished) for the frontispiece of the "Catalogue des tableaux de Monsieur de Julienne"), preserved in the Morgan Library in New York. 1. François Boucher, the master of French rocaille The extraordinary career of Francois Boucher was unmatched by his contemporaries in versatility, consistency and output. For many, particularly the writers and collectors who led the revival of interest in the French rococo during the last century, his sensuous beauties and plump cupids represent the French eighteenth century at its most typical. His facility with the brush, even when betraying the occasional superficiality of his art, enabled him to master every aspect of painting – history and mythology, portraiture, landscape, ordinary life and, as part of larger compositions, even still life. He had been trained as an engraver, and the skills of a draftsman, which he imbued in the studio of Jean-Francois Cars (1661 – 1738), stood him in good stead throughout his career; his delightful drawings are one of the most sought-after aspects of his oeuvre. As a student of Francois Lemoyne (1688 - 1737), he mastered the art of composition. The four years he spent in Italy, from 1727-1731, educated him in the works of the masters, classics and history, that his modest upbringing had denied him. On his return to Paris in 1734, he gained full membership of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture with his splendid Rinaldo and Armida (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Although, throughout his career, he occasionally painted subjects taken from the Bible, and would always have considered himself first as a history painter, his own repertoire of heroines, seductresses, flirtatious peasant girls and erotic beauties was better suited to a lighter, more decorative subject matter. His mastery of technique and composition enabled him to move from large scale tapestry...

Provenance: Private Collection, UK After initial training under Justus Suttermans and Vincenzo Dandini, in 1673 Anton Domenico Gabbiani embar...

Inscribed: 3. una Madonna che va in Egitto, verso, and Madonna che va in Egitto, recto Provenance: Private Collection, UK, since 1999 This expressive and boldly executed drawing is the work of Luca...

This spectacular red chalk drawing depicts an elderly woman, her eyes bulging, her hand stretched out towards the sky. This disturbing character, who seems close to dementia, and the elongation of her arm with its Mannerist overtones, plunge us into the Florentine artistic milieu of the first half of the 17th century. The proximity of this drawing to some characters in the fresco in the Pitti Palace representing The Muses, Poets and Philosophers chased from Parnassus, the last masterpiece of Giovanni da San Giovanni, leads us to propose an attribution to this artist and a dating of around 1635-1636. 1. Giovanni da San Giovanni, the painter of contradiction We take here the title of the monography dedicated to the artist by Anna Banti in 1977, which remains the reference book for this artist. The son of a notary, Giovanni Mannozzi, known as Giovanni da San Giovanni, abandoned his studies to go to Florence at the age of sixteen, where he entered the studio of Matteo Rosselli (1578 - 1650) around 1609 and enrolled in the Academy of Drawing Arts in 1612. Around 1615 he produced his first known works, mainly frescoes for the city's tabernacles. He became famous in Florence for his originality, combining an obsessive application to the study of drawing and the reading of poetry and history with a disheveled appearance. Between 1619 and 1620 he decorated the facade of the Antella Palace in Piazza Santa Croce, a decoration that still partly survives today. The death of Cosimo II in 1621 put an end to the Florentine building activity and Giovanni da San Giovanni left for Rome to find other sponsors with the painter Francesco Furini...

This rare drawing by Nattier is part of a set of preparatory studies executed in 1717 for one of the painter's first commissions, the painting commissioned by Tsar Peter I of Russia ...

France circa 1770 Two lovers surprised in bed Black chalk on paper 13 x 17 cm Modern frame : 34 x 38 cm This drawing had been attributed to Gabriel de Saint Aubin (1724-1780). It's...