Adrien Manglard Lyon 1695 - 1760 Rome

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 1999, lot 490 (as Pietro Antoniani), where acquired by the present owner.

Though last appearing at auction with an attribution to Pietro Antoniani (see Provenance below) this painting is a characteristic work by the French marine painter Adrien Manglard. Manglard is principally known to us today as a painter of marines and landscapes, though the sources clearly inform us that he also executed a large number of religious works. Manglard probably began his early training under his godfather Adriaen van der Cabel (who had settled in Lyon in 1688) but at the age of twenty Manglard travelled to Rome and there came into contact with Paolo Anesi and Andrea Locatelli, arguably the two most important protagonists of landscape painting in Rome at that time. Chronology is almost impossible to ascertain in Manglard's works for none of his pictures are dated and many have lain for a long time under alternative attributions; to Pieter Mulier called Tempesta or, more commonly, to Claude-Joseph Vernet, whose style greatly influenced Manglard's work. The principal subject of his marines, and indeed of the present work, is the sea itself: the figures are marginalised, the landscape merely acts as a backdrop or framing element, and the ship being tossed on choppy seas is moved to the far left of the composition. Manglard was a prolific draughtsman and a large number of sheets with figure studies survive, showing him to be an acute observer, and the numerous studies of boats explain the accurate portrayal of vessels in all his marines. This composition was almost certainly the source of inspiration for an engraving by Manglard in which the overall design is reversed, and though there are marked differences between the two works the leaning boat and rock in the foreground are repeated (see S. Maddalo, Adrien Manglard (1695-1760), Rome 1982, p. 158, no. 23, reproduced).