Charles-François Grenier de Lacroix, called Lacroix de Marseille Marseille circa 1700 - 1782 Berlin

Anonymous sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, 16-27 June 1967, lots 202 and 203;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York;
Dr. Daniel McLean McDonald;
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 11 December 1992, lot 36;
With Richard Green, London, from whom acquired by the present owner.

London, Leggatt Brothers, Paintings from the collection of Dr. D.M. Macdonald, 16 October - 6 November 1970, nos. 17 and 18.

Paintings from the collection of Dr. D.M. Macdonald, exhibition catalogue, London, Leggatt Brothers, 16 October - 6 November 1970, pp. 35-37, cat. nos. 17 and 18, both reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These paintings have been recently lined and restored and have recent stretchers. Both are in fairly immaculate condition. Morning, Fishermen on a rocky coast. Signed and dated 1767 at lower left on a rock. The fine craquelure has been muted in a few places, almost exclusively in the sky, for instance small touches near the horizon by the right edge, with a faint line of craquelure touched out running up diagonally from the sailing boat on the right towards the centre, and some touches along the stretcher bar line at upper left and down much of the right stretcher bar line. These are minor surface touches and there is just one small knock retouched in the smoke on the left by the rocks, visible under UV. There are a few touches at the upper edge and the right base edge. Overall the painting is in fine condition, with a little thinness in the foliage of the central tree against the sky as also the fishing net against the sky but generally well preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions. Evening, Dancers on the Shore. This painting is also very well preserved, with a little border line of retouching along the edges. There are also a few small lost flakes retouched in the upper left corner of the sky and one small knock touched out in the centre just above the clouds. Minor craquelure has been muted with slight occasional retouching in the sky and the distant hills, but otherwise the paint is smoothly intact and in generally beautiful condition. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Lacroix de Marseille painted the latter of these views on several other occasions: in a painting that sold in these Rooms, 5 July 2005, lot 13 (£130,000) which pre-dates the present work by three years, having been painted in 1764; in another work that sold in these Rooms, 8 March 1972, lot 72 (dated 1776); and in another which sold Monaco, Sotheby's, 15-16 June 1990, lot 294 (dated 1770).

These paintings were probably executed in Rome, where Lacroix is first documented in 1750 in the company of the Marquis de Vandières. His first dated work is from this same year, a view of a Seaport, signed and dated 'Grenier. de La. Crois. fecit Rom 1750'.¹  The following year he made four copies of works by Claude-Joseph Vernet, under whom he was certainly studying so indistinguishable in style are his copies from Vernet's originals.²  Only after Vernet left Rome in 1753 do Lacroix's paintings take on their own identity. He is not recorded back in France until 1776, when he exhibited at the Exposition du Colisée, and it thus seems likely that these works were painted by Lacroix while he was still in Rome. 

1.  In Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art; see France and the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London, Royal Academy, 6 January 1968 - 3 March 1969, no. 358.
2.  Now at Uppark, Sussex; Vernet's originals are also at Uppark.