Pierre-Antoine Demachy

With Cailleux, Paris;
By whom sold ("Property of Cailleux, Paris"), New York, Christie's, 23 October 1998, lot 97 (as indistinctly signed and dated:  P*D*MA* **87);
There purchased by the present collector.

Paris, Salon, 1787, no. 27.

Lanlaire au Salon Académique de peinture, 1787, p. 16;
J.-B. Robin, L'Ami des Artistes au Sallon. Réflexions sur l'origine et les progrès des arts sur leur état actuel en France, 1787/1972, p. 25;
Tarare au salon de peinture, 1787, p. 13.
Inscriptions pour mettre au bas de différens tableaux exposés au salon du Louvre, 1787, p. 8.

For a high resolution digital image, please refer to the online catalogue at Sothebys.com or contact a member of the Old Master Paintings department. The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The panel on which this painting is painted has been thinned and cradled. The panel is flat, and the paint layer is stable. The painting has been restored effectively and competently. Cleaning the work is not recommended. Considerable separation cracking has occurred in the dark colors in the center and on the left side. This has attracted filling and retouching; some of this is visible under ultraviolet light, but some may exist beneath an older varnish. The lighter colors on the right side and between the arches on the left have all escaped such cracking or damage of any kind. The cracking seems to be particular to the darker colors.
"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."

L’Eglise des Saints Innocents (Church of the Holy Innocents) was located in the cemetery of the same name on the rue Saint-Denis.  In 1786, a Parliamentary public health order decreed that the cemetery and church be destroyed to make way for a marketplace.  Demachy, who painted numerous paintings and drawings of the church both before and during its destruction, exhibited three paintings depicting its demolition in the Salon of 1787 (nos. 25-27).  The dimensions of no. 27 correspond closely with those of the present work.  Demachy’s work, like that of his contemporary Hubert Robert, recorded in detail the rapid changes to the city of Paris that occurred during the final years of the Ancien Régime and the beginning of the Revolution.  His paintings and drawings of L’Eglise des Saints Innocents constitute an important source for historical reconstructions of the building.¹

1.  See H. Cauzy, "L'Eglise des Saint-Innocents à Paris," in Bulletin Monumental, 1972, p. 181, fig. 2, p. 285, fig. 7, and p. 288, fig. 11; another painting depicting the demolition of the church is now in the collection of the Musée Carnavalet, Paris.