ID 1172981
Lot 81 | ATTRIBUÉ À JEAN-LOUIS DESPREZ (AUXERRE 1743-1804 STOCKHOLM)
Estimate value
€ 3 000 – 5 000
Place de l’Obélisque à Catane, Sicile
signé (?) et titré (?) ‘Vue de La Place de L’Obélisque à Catane./ Des Prez del’ (sur le montage)
plume et encre noire, aquarelle, traces de pierre noire, sur son montage d’origine
22 x 34,5 cm (8 5⁄8 x 13 5⁄8 in.)
Inscribed
avec différences par Jean-Duplessis-Bertaux, dans J.C. Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, IV, 1e partie, Paris, 1785, no 26.
Further details
ATTRIBUTED TO JEAN-LOUIS DESPREZ, SQUARE OF OBELISK IN CATANIA, PEN AND BLACK INK, WATERCOLOUR, TRACES OF BLACK CHALK
This Sicilian view, related to one of the illustrations in the Abbé de Saint-Non’s Voyage Pittoresque (see above), depicts one of Catania’s main squares, opposite the Duomo, with its central fountain, erected in 1736 and surmounted by an ancient obelisk. Desprez added a probably fictitious carnival scene.
Several very similar views of this Catania square are known: one in the collection of Roberta Olson and Alexander Johnson in New York, and one in the Centre Culturel Suédois, Paris (P. Stein and M. Tavener Holmes, Eighteenth-Century French Drawings in New York Collections, New York, 1999, no. 66, ill., fig. 66.I), and two previously on the art market, including one from the Dillée collection (Sotheby’s, Paris, 19 March 2015, lot 367; Galerie Bassenge, Berlin, 30 November 2018, lot 6493).
There are a few differences in the treatment of the details of the figures and architecture between the versions mentioned, the most important being the number of figures around the fountain. In the present drawing, as well as in those in New York, the Centre Culturel Suédois and Berlin, the crowd is dense. By contrast, in the engraving and in the version sold in 2015, the square is almost empty, populated only by a few isolated figures.
| Artist: | Louis Jean Desprez (1743 - 1804) |
|---|---|
| Applied technique: | Graphite, Painted, Watercolor |
| Medium: | Acrylic glass, Paper, Plastic, Stone |
| Art style: | Old Masters |
| Genre: | Cityscape |
| Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
| Auction house category: | All other types of objects, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Drawings, Watercolors and drawings |
| Artist: | Louis Jean Desprez (1743 - 1804) |
|---|---|
| Applied technique: | Graphite, Painted, Watercolor |
| Medium: | Acrylic glass, Paper, Plastic, Stone |
| Art style: | Old Masters |
| Genre: | Cityscape |
| Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
| Auction house category: | All other types of objects, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Drawings, Watercolors and drawings |
| Address of auction |
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