Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski de Rola)

Study for « Paysage de Fribourg » - 1943 a drawing by Balthus (1908 - 2001)

We would like to thank Madame Beck-Saiello for confirming the autograph nature of this drawing after an in-person examination. It was probably during an excursion in the countryside near Avignon that Claude-Joseph Vernet executed this drawing, enhanced with pen and brown ink, depicting a mansion on a hilltop overlooking a small village with geometric shapes. 1. Joseph Vernet, a painter influenced by Italy Claude-Joseph Vernet was born in Avignon in 1714, the son of Antoine Vernet (1689-1753), an artisan painter of architectural decorations, coach panels, and the like. He moved to the studio of Philippe Sauvan (1697-1792), a leading history painter in Avignon, and then worked with Jacques Viali (active 1681-1745), a decorative, landscape, and marine painter in Aix-en-Provence. Vernet's first recorded paintings were decorative overdoors executed in 1731 in the Aix townhouse of the marquise de Simiane. In 1734, Joseph de Seytres, marquis de Caumont, a leading amateur in Avignon, sponsored Vernet to make a study trip to Italy to complete his artistic education and to draw antiquities for his patron. As Avignon was a papal territory in Vernet's day, he also had a number of useful introductions among influential churchmen when he arrived in Rome. Vernet was soon at home in the French community there, and he was encouraged by Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), director of the Académie de France in Rome, even though the young painter had no official affiliation with the royal institution. He likely entered the studio of the French marine painter Adrien Manglard...

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evoke the art of Lorrain, we find on the verso of this drawing additional evidences that lead us to consider this unpublished drawing as a work by the master.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 1639. 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 very modern drawing presents a view of Ariccia, a small town 25 kilometres south-east of Rome. The Palazzo Chigi (in which the film-maker Luchino Visconti would film a large part of The Leopard a century later) and the adjoining church are seen from the bottom of the ravine that surrounds the town. This drawing is a moving testimony to the attraction of the city for artists of the Romantic period, who established in Ariccia a vivid artists' colony. 1. Achille Bénouville...

René-Paris Castaing, winner of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1924, left a large body of work, both sacred and secular. Many churches in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in South-West France still bear witness to the diversity of his talent. In 1942, he began a major decoration project for the Château de Diusse, in the north-east of the county, including an allegory of the four seasons. The vigorous pastel we are presenting here is a study for Spring, depicted as Flore undressing. This commission was a veritable swan song for the artist, who died a year later at the age of 47. 1. René-Marie Castaing, the great inter-war painter in Pau René-Marie Castaing was born in Pau on December 16th 1896. His father, Joseph Castaing, was also a painter: he was the official portraitist of Pau's high society, which was particularly cosmopolitan at the end of the century, when many rich foreigners spent the winter in Pau, taking advantage of the mild weather to enjoy an outdoor lifestyle punctuated by hunting, horse ridings and golf. René-Marie Castaing was admitted to the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris in April 1920 and entered the studio of Paul-Albert Laurens (1870-1934). In 1924, he was awarded the First Grand Prix de Rome for Painting, which earned him a stay at the Villa Médicis for more than three years. He then returned to Pau in 1928, where he lived until his death. Castaing's work is marked by the academic tradition, in which drawing plays as important a role as painting. Although his drawings are often sketches that help to set up large painted compositions, they stand as independent artworks in which the artist fully expresses the vivacity of his talent. Castaing was a fervent Christian and religious painting played an essential part in his work, as shown by the decorations he created for the churches of Bizanos, Borce, Bidache and Salies-de-Béarn. The painter also created several secular decorations, such as that for the dining room of the Villa Saint-Basil's in Pau in 1935, and the Hunting at the Albret’s time commissioned in 1940 by the Prefecture of Pau. The décor created in 1942-1943 for the Château de Diusse, a mansion located north-east of Pau, was his last large-scale décor, as the painter died shortly after its completion on December 8th 1943. 2. Description of the drawing Our pastel depicts an eminently secular theme: Spring is embodied by Flore, crouching on the ground with one knee touching the ground. She reveals her ample bosom by removing her shirt, her arms raised above her shoulders to undress. Given Castaing's classical training at the Beaux-Arts and the influence of ancient statuary...

Paysage en Normandie by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961) Charcoal on paper 32 x 39 cm (12 ⅝ x 15 ⅜ inches) Stamped lower right, Manzana Pissarro Executed circa 1930 Artist biogr...

Landscape is a pencil drawing realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980). Good condition on a yellowed paper. No signature. Reynold Arnould was born in Le Havre, ...

Landscape is an original pencil on paper realized by Marcel Mangin. Signed on the lower right. Good conditions except for a trace of humidity on the up...

Landscape is a beautiful original drawing on paper realized by Robert Santerne between the 1930s and 1940s. Stamped on the rear "Atelier R.Santerne" Aged conditions with repaired r...