Gabriel-Jacques de Saint-Aubin

This exquisitely detailed and finely preserved sheet executed by Saint-Aubin in 1772 fits securely into a group of drawings that survive from the same date, depicting scenes and views of the Colisée, a gargantuan pleasure palace constructed near the present Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées, which was launched with great fanfare in the Spring of 1771.

The source of inspiration for this costly and ultimately unsuccessful venture was London’s celebrated Vauxhall Gardens and, as Kim de Beaumont notes, like them the Colisée was meant to provide public entertainments simulating monarchical celebrations. The excesses of the project are neatly summarized in the following description: “The radial structure loosely inspired by ancient Rome consisted of three elements…: an oval courtyard enclosed by a covered colonnade, for festive processions and equestrian events; a sumptuously decorated rotunda with a transparent ceiling lantern, tiered seating below, and encircling galleries above, for concerts and balls; and a giant kidney-shaped pool, also surrounded by a covered colonnade, for water jousts and fireworks displays.”¹

In May of 1772, as per the inscription on the present work, Saint-Aubin worked up an album of neatly drawn studies² showing the principal aspects of the building and a handful of subsidiary rooms. De Beaumont considers three of these studies to be preparatory for his best-known views of the Colisée, with two of them dated 1772. The present work can be most closely compared to a further study by Saint-Aubin, titled Fête in the Courtyard of the Colisée, which is in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris.³ The Louvre sheet contains a more elaborate staffage than our drawing, with a costumed parade taking place in the courtyard, however the architectural and stylistic comparisons are extremely compelling between the two works.

The Colisée was only to last to the end of the 1770s before being demolished, with Saint-Aubin’s drawings one of the few successes to survive this ill-fated project.

1.  Gabriel de Saint Aubin 1724-1780, exhib. cat., New York, The Frick Collection, 2008, p. 242

2. This album was recorded by Emile Dacier as in the David-Weill collection in 1929; E. Dacier, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, peintre, dessinateur et graveur, Paris and Brussels, II, 1931, no. 497

3.  Gabriel de Saint Aubin 1724-1780, exhib. cat., New York, The Frick Collection, 2008, p. 244, fig. 2