Thomas Rowlandson

Dr Joseph R. Goldyne, Cambridge, Massachusetts;

Private Collection, U.S.A.,

sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 March 1985, lot 93;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 1 July 2004, lot 9;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 7 June 2006, lot 342;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 6 June 2007, lot 193;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 4 December 2008, lot 118,

where acquired by the present owner.

London, Society of Artists, 1783, no. 223

J. Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist, London 1880, p. 262-266;

J. Hayes, Rowlandson Watercolours and Drawings, London 1972, p. 77, pls 12 & 13

Rowlandson's highly amusing and finely drawn watercolor depicts the statue of Louis XIV, built by the Duke de la Feuillade outside his own palace in 1686. The monarch, as depicted by the statue, tramples on the enemies of France while Fame lays a laurel on his head. At the base of the monument, Rowlandson shows one of the huge bronze slave figures which were the only part of the memorial to survive when it was torn down during the French Revolution. Behind the elegant facades of the 'place', are the twin towers of Notre Dame. The great Cathedral would not normally be visible from the Place des Victoires, but Rowlandson introduces the towers to confirm to the English viewer that the setting is indeed Paris.

A French courtier passes below the statue in an unsteady carriage which is being both pushed and pulled by his unwilling attendants. He gazes up at the King with rapt devotion. A clergyman, nose in the air, strides past, quite indifferent to the activity around him and on his arm an elegant French lady turns her head with interest. In the foreground, a 'shoe-black' with a fiddle dances with a poodle, whose head is comically decorated with an old peruke.

Standing back and gazing at the statue, with some detachment from their surroundings, is a sturdy Englishman and his pretty companion, their nationality left in no doubt by the presence of an English mastiff chasing a whippet. Elsewhere, a nobleman and his lady are transported in an elegant carriage past a group of friars.

Rowlandson drew two other versions, with subtle compositional differences, of this marvelous subject. One, signed and dated 1784, was sold at Christie's London on 12 July 1994, lot 27 for £26,000, while the other is now in the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven.¹ Of the three watercolors, it is the present lot that is considered to have been the one exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1783. It was later engraved by Samuel Alken in 1789 - the year of the French Revolution.

^1. Yale Center for British Art, acc. no. B1981.17