- 78
Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre
Estimate
25,000 - 35,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre
- the procession of the chinese masquerade staged by the french academy in rome
- Black chalk;
on the verso are several attributions to Gillot and a long description giving the reference to the Pierre print
Catalogue Note
This seems to be a preliminary drawing, in reverse, for an etching which is signed Pierre Sculp. and dated 1735.1 It was dedicated to the duc de Saint-Aignan, the French Ambassador to Rome, to whom Pierre was presented by Vleughels on his arrival in Rome in late June 1735. As Lesur and Aaron point out, Pierre arrived after the famous Chinese masquerade which the pensionnaires of the French Academy had staged the previous winter. They suggest that he would have relied on the accounts of his fellows to make this image of the exotic procession which must have astonished the spectators on the streets of Rome. In the print, the scene is set in the Piazza Colonna, in front of the Palazzo Mancini which was the seat of the French Academy. The print bears no indication of the 'inventor' but this drawing proves that Pierre both drew and etched the composition.
1. N. Lesur and O. Aaron, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, Paris 2009, p. 478, G.1, reproduced