Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 47. An elaborate design for a wall elevation, including a door and a window, two niches with sculptures and half a dome with two different choices of decoration.

Edmé Bouchardon

An elaborate design for a wall elevation, including a door and a window, two niches with sculptures and half a dome with two different choices of decoration

Auction Closed

January 26, 04:31 PM GMT

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Edmé Bouchardon

Chaumont 1698 - 1762 Paris

An elaborate design for a wall elevation, including a door and a window, two niches with sculptures and half a dome with two different choices of decoration



Black chalk and black lead

265 by 286 mm; 10½ by 11¼ in.

Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), Paris (on his mount with cartouche and attribution: Edmundi/Bouchardon), his sale, Paris, Basan, 15 November 1775 - 30 January 1776,  part of lot 1151 ('Quinze sujets divers, dessinés à Rome, d’après plusieurs monuments anciens qui y existent,' 26 livres to the abbé de Tersan);
Eugène Rodrigues (1853-1928), Paris (L.897),
his sale, Paris, 25-26 February 1929, part of lot 138 ('Tombeau du Pape Clément XI. - Partie de façade d’un palais. 2 dessins à la mine de plomb. Montures de P.J. Mariette');
Charles Eggimann (1863-1948) Paris and Geneva (L.560), his inscription: 'Montage de Mariette/ 120-'  and 'Collection Rodrigues/ par Edme Bouchardon/ 1698-1762' on the mount
P. Rosenberg, Les dessins de la collection Mariette; Ecole française, Paris, 2011, I, p. 95 and p. 108.

Though we have not been able to identify the project to which this elaborate drawing relates, it must have been a design for an important chapel or church. The artist has offered here two different options for the vaulted dome with oval windows at the base. 


Soon after winning the first prize for sculpture at the Académie Royale in April 1723, Bouchardon left Paris for the Académie de France in Rome, to perfect his artistic formation. He remained in the Eternal City from September 1723 until 1732 – quite a long stay for a pensionnaire, which would have given him an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with all aspects of art, including architecture, and to participate in the city's lively artistic milieu. 


Throughout his time at the French Academy, Bouchardon demonstrated a rigorous and committed personality. He was involved in a variety of prestigious sculptural projects and ambitious designs, including the 1727 commission from Cardinal Alessandro Albani for the tomb of Pope Clemens XI (Albani, 1700-1721) in the Basilica of St. Peter,1 and the project for the Trevi Fountain (1730). 


Though his drawings were in any case often quite meticulous in execution, it is evident in the present sheet that Bouchardon must have been highly influenced by the graphic style of one of the greatest architects active in Rome during the previous century, Francesco Borromini (1599-1667). This influence is apparent not only in the perfected use of the black chalk but also in the disciplined and elaborate design of the elevation itself, which combines with extreme elegance a variety of different architectural elements. 


Bouchardon clearly had some ambition in the realm of architecture: when working on the Trevi Fountain project, he presented a design that involved the reconstruction of half of the building to which the fountain is applied.


1. For a red chalk study for this project, in the Landesmuseum, Mayence (inv. no. G.S.O'274), see Rosenberg, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 9, 108. For general information on Bouchardon's stay in Rome, see E. Kopp, The Learned Draftsman, Edme Bouchardon, Los Angeles 2017, p. 20