THOMAS LEFEBURE (BRUXELLES 1636-1720 DURLACH) - photo 1

THOMAS LEFEBURE (BRUXELLES 1636-1720 DURLACH)

Lot 64
26.03.2025 15:00UTC +01:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationFrance, Paris
ID 1389939
Lot 64 | THOMAS LEFEBURE (BRUXELLES 1636-1720 DURLACH)
Estimate value
€ 15 000 – 20 000
THOMAS LEFEBURE (BRUXELLES 1636-1720 DURLACH)
Vue du château des Yveteaux dans l'Orne
titré, signé et daté ‘Veüe Du Chateau du Marsquisat des Yuetaux/ Lefebure fecit 1710’ (en haut au centre) et ‘PETRIFICANDO . LETICAT’ (en bas au centre)
graphite, pinceau, lavis gris, rehaussé de blanc sur vélin
45,5 x 65,8 cm (18 x 25 7/8 in.)




Provenance

Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, n° 108.1979 (according a label on the verso).



Further details

THOMAS LEFEBURE, VIEW OF YVETEAUX CASTLE IN NORMANDY, GRAPHITE, BRUSH, GREY WASH, TITLED, SIGNED AND DATED 1710

This large view on vellum represents the château of Yveteaux in Normandy in the region of Orne. The coat of arms in the center of the upper border on the left are those of the Vauquelin family, which was head of the Yveteaux lordship. On the left, they are joined by the arms of the Pontbellanger family. The motto ‘Petrificando Letificat’, which appears in the centre of the lower border, is associated with a Medusa head and means ‘petrify with joy’.
The border evokes the hunt, richly decorated with living and dead animals (game, dog heads, arrows and hunting horns). The graphic quality is superb, as are the figures. The details are abundant exquisitely rendered like in a miniature. Thomas Lefebure's first training was as miniaturist, and he was close to another famous Swiss miniaturist, Joseph Werner.
As for the château, its graphic treatment is more blurred and allusive than the border, and should be compared with two other drawings depicting the same place from exactly the same angle. The first, classified as anonymous, could have been done by Thomas Lefebure, as a drawing done after nature on the spot and which would have served for the present finished view on vellum. It comes from the collection of the historiographer François-Roger de Gaignières (1642-1715) and is kept at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (fig. 1; cabinet des estampes et de la photographie, inv. Va 61, Orne). The second, probably a copy of the first, was drawn at a later date by Théodore Basset de Jolimont (1788-1854) and is at the Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen (fig. 2; inv. U 479-8-07; 28.5 x 26 cm). Both are much smaller than the present vellum.
Signed at the top of the composition, this drawing has been drawn by the Belgian miniaturist Thomas Lefebure. The drawing works by Lefebure remain little known to this day. The graphic quality of this ambitious vellum, dated 1710, particularly in the delicate depiction of the figures in the foreground and the richly detailed border, argues in favour of a miniaturist artist.
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