Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 15

Late 18th Century Watercolour, A Swiss Village, Circle of Claude-Louis Châtelet

$694.69
£514.80
€580
CA$948.38
A$1,055.04
CHF 553.06
MX$12,892.29
NOK 7,042.57
SEK 6,629.61
DKK 4,416.07
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

A late 18th or early 19th century watercolour view of a group of figures in a village square. Though not apparently signed the work is very competent and of high quality. It is framed in a gilt wood frame with a card mount all under glass. A charming watercolour of a rural village scene. A couple and their young child stand in conversation surrounded by timber framed buildings with high pitched roofs designed for a snowy climate. The artist has captured the light and shade of the scene all under a moody sky and the painting has retained its original colours with little fading. Claude-Louis Châtelet (1753 – 7 May 1795) was a French painter and draughtsman guillotined at the time of The French Revolution. Around 1776, Claude-Louis Châtelet travelled throughout Switzerland, alongside the influential farmer-general Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Baron Zurlauben, supervising the transcription of the landscapes into drawings, as part of the preparatory illustrations for the monumental work, Les Tableaux Topographiques de la Suisse, launched by subscription in 1780. Claude-Louis Châtelet thus acquired a reputation as a landscape painter, which led him to be chosen as one of the main illustrators of one of the most important works of the late eighteenth century, the Voyage Pittoresque ou Description des Royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, published in five volumes, by Jean-Baptiste Delafosse between 1781 and 1786 by the abbot of Saint-Non. He then went to Italy in 1778-1779 in the company of Dominique Vivant Denon, Louis-Jean Desprez and Jean-Augustin Renard to execute 132 drawings of Naples, Puglia, the Basilicata region, Calabria and Sicily. Other artists participated in this enterprise, but without necessarily going to Italy, relying on the memory of their past travels: Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Pierre-Adrien Pâris, Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Louis-François Cassas and Jean-Pierre Houël. Châtelet met many people and influential artists in Italy, including in Rome and Florence. On his return to France, at the request of Queen Marie-Antoinette, of whom he was one of the favourite painters and who commissioned a number of paintings from him, he contributed to the illustration of albums representing the Trianon and its gardens, albums offered by the Queen to her distinguished visitors such as King Gustav III of Sweden, Emperor Joseph II of Austria, brother of Marie Antoinette, Archduke Ferdinand, another brother of the Queen. He also illustrated an edition of Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse, of which he painted a representation of the tomb at Ermenonville. It was during this period that he executed a series of canvases representing castles and parks and gardens in Île-de-France, which would end up in the private collections of amateurs such as the Abbé de Saint-Non himself, or Richard Mique, Louis XVI's first architect and whom Marie-Antoinette chose for the design of the buildings forming the Queen's hamlet. Seduced by revolutionary ideas from the insurrection of 10 August 1792, a member of the civil and revolutionary committees of his section, he was elected in June 1793 to the very influential Committee of Surveillance of the Department of Paris which, in conjunction with the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security of the Convention, centralized information on suspects and participated in the requisition of recruits and supplies for the armies of the the Republic, at war with the Kings of Europe. He was appointed by the Committee of Public Safety as a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal in September 1793. Imprisoned after the fall of Robespierre, with whom he was very close, and a victim of the Thermidorian reaction, he was condemned to the guillotine on 6 May 1795 and executed the next day, at the same time as Fouquier-Tinville and Jean-Louis Prieur.
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 14.97 in (38 cm)Width: 12.6 in (32 cm)Depth: 0.6 in (1.5 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • After:
    Claude-Louis Châtelet (1753 - 1795, French)
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    There is a fold to the centre of the paper and some staining to the mount top left. Some losses to frame.
  • Gallery Location:
    Cotignac, FR
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: LG/Châtelet,1stDibs: LU1430215580352

More From This Seller

View All
1930s French Barbizon School Watercolour of a Church in a Lansdscape.
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Barbizon School watercolour on paper view of a church tower in a landscape by Henri Clamen. The painting is unsigned but was acquired from the artist's atelier with other sign...
Category

Early 20th Century Barbizon School Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Pencil, Paper, Watercolor

Mid 20th Century French Landscape, Watercolour, The Bastide
Located in Cotignac, FR
French watercolour on paper view of a manor house or bastide in a rural landscape. The painting is signed bottom right and presented in a fine gilded wood frame with a hessian cloth ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Landscape Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

1930s French Barbizon School Watercolour of a Church in a Lansdscape.
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Barbizon School watercolour on paper view of a church and its tower in a landscape by Henri Clamen. The painting is unsigned but was acquired from the artist's atelier with ot...
Category

Early 20th Century Barbizon School Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Paper, Watercolor, Pencil

French Mid 20th Century Watercolour, 'Le Hameau et la Bastide'.
By Yves Brayer
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid 20th Century gouache on paper of a Provençal village or 'hameau' and a 'bastide' or manor house in the landscape signed or titled 'Bodol' and dated bottom right. The style and c...
Category

1950s Outsider Art Landscape Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

1930s French Impressionist Watercolour, The Rooftops.
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Impressionist watercolour on paper view of a collection of rooftops by Henri Clamen. The painting is 'located' bottom right and ...
Category

Early 20th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Paper, Watercolor

1930s French Impressionist Watercolour of a French Street Scene
Located in Cotignac, FR
French Impressionist watercolour on paper view of a French street scene by Henri Clamen. The painting is unsigned but was acquired from the artists atelier with other signed works. ...
Category

Early 20th Century Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Paper

You May Also Like

Cotman, Norwich School, Early English Watercolor of Rouen, France
By John Sell Cotman
Located in Harkstead, GB
A beautiful composition capturing one of the well known buildings of Rouen, a city that was very popular with early 19th century watercolour painters. John Sell Cotman painted this v...
Category

Early 19th Century Victorian Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Antique French Town Watercolor Painting
By Alphonse Soumers
Located in Houston, TX
Mesmerizing one-of-a-kind watercolor of an old town French street scene by artist Alphonse Soumers, circa 1920. Original one-of-a-kind vintage work of art on paper displayed on a w...
Category

1910s Other Art Style Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

French Late 19th Century Watercolour - Ambient Street with Figures
Located in Corsham, GB
French street scene in watercolours. Mounted in a simple gilt-effect frame. Indistinctly initialled. On paper.
Category

Late 19th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Jean-Marie Oscar Gue (1809-1877) - 1832 Watercolour, Busy Town Scene
Located in Corsham, GB
Presented in a gilt effect frame. Signed and dated. On paper.
Category

Early 19th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Early 19th Century Watercolour - Historic Street
Located in Corsham, GB
A fine watercolour and gum arabic painting depicting a busy street scene in a historic European town. Very well presented glazed in a wooden frame with...
Category

19th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

After Samuel Prout - Mid 19th Century Watercolour, Sion
Located in Corsham, GB
An accomplished watercolour study after Samuel Prout depicting a busy street in Sion, the capital of the Swiss Canton of Valais. The artist captures the scene in a delicate hand payi...
Category

Mid-19th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor