Presented here is a selection of 18th century drawings in stock.  Please click on a thumbnail to view further information on the work, as well as an enlarged image of the entire drawing. Six thumbnail images are shown per page; click on the red page number at the lower right to view another page.

Palmanova 1762-1844 Milan

A Venetian Shipping Scene

Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over a black chalk underdrawing.

Signed Bison in brown ink at the lower right.

141 x 217 mm. (5 1/2 x 8 3/8 in.)

One of the last and most delightful exponents of the 18th century Venetian vedute tradition, Giuseppe Bernardino Bison worked as a decorative fresco painter at villas and palaces around the Veneto. Around 1800 he settled in Trieste, where among his more important works were the decoration of the Palazzo Carciotti and the Palazzo della Vecchia Borsa. In 1831 Bison moved to Milan, where he worked for the remainder of his career, and where he was particularly active as a scenographer, producing stage designs for the Teatro alla Scala and other theatres. Although his career lasted well into the 19th century, his style invariably retains something of the flavour of the previous century.

Bison was an accomplished and prolific draughtsman, whose earliest works show the influence of Giambattista Tiepolo and Francesco Guardi, while his later drawings tend towards Neoclassicism. His preferred medium was pen and ink, and his drawings encompass a wide and varied range of subjects, from religious narratives to genre scenes, capricci, and stage and ornament designs. Few of Bison’s many drawings, however, were done as preparatory studies for paintings, and he seems to have produced a large number of his drawings as independent works of art for sale.

A Young Man Playing a Violin

Black chalk and pencil, circular.

Inscribed L. David del. on the verso.

198 mm. (7 7/8 in.) diameter.

This drawing may be closely compared—in style, technique, medium and overall effect—with a signed circular portrait drawing of a young woman by Jacques-Louis David in the Louvre. Of similar dimensions and drawn with an equally precise handling of black chalk and pencil, both drawings reveal the particular influence of the draughtsmanship of Charles-Nicolas Cochin (1715-1790), who made a speciality of drawn and engraved portraits in this medallion format.

Colleville 1729-1765 Paris

Pen and brown ink and brown wash, extensively heightened with white. Signed and dated Deshays. 1762. at the lower right.

166 x 240 mm. (6 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.)

After winning the Prix de Rome in 1751, Jean-Baptiste Deshays studied for three years at the Ecole des Elèves Protégés and spent a further four years at the Académie de France in Rome. He made a particular speciality of paintings of religious subjects, and received important commissions for such churches as Saint-Roch in Paris, Saint-Pierre in Douai and Saint-André in Rouen. Deshays achieved considerable success during his brief career, which lasted only about seven years before his early death. Some six hundred drawings were dispersed at the posthumous sale of the contents of the artist's studio, probably including the present sheet which, with its vigorous handling of the pen and brush, is a fine example of the artist’s bold draughtsmanship.

Dated 1762, this drawing is a preparatory study for a painting of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, exhibited by Deshays at the Salon of 1763 but now lost. The painting was widely admired in reviews of the 1763 Salon, with Diderot lavishing particular praise: ‘Si l’on me donne un tableau à choisir au Salon, violà le mien; cherchez le vôtre. Vous en trouverez de plus savants, de plus parfaits peut-être; pour un plus séduisant, je vous en défie.’ The present sheet, aptly described as ‘fougueux et fort’ by André Bancel in his recent catalogue of the artist’s work, is the only surviving preparatory drawing by Deshays for the 1763 painting.

Venice 1707-1769 Venice

A Pagan Sacrifice

Pen and two shades of brown ink, over an underdrawing in black chalk, on two joined sheets of paper, laid down.

Inscribed Di Francesco Fontebasso Veneziano in brown ink at the lower right.

498 x 718 mm. (19 5/8 x 28 1/4 in.)

This unusually large and highly finished sheet is unrelated to any known painting by Fontebasso. Given its scale and high degree of finish, it was almost certainly produced as an autonomous work of art, valued in its own right and perhaps intended for sale to a collector. Fontebasso here displays his remarkable skill with the pen, with a network of hatched and crosshatched lines and the use of two shades of brown ink to achieve a sense of depth and luminosity. The figures in this drawing are characteristic of Fontebasso’s muscular figural types, while their poses are also typical of the artist. A new and exceptional addition to the corpus of drawings by Fontebasso, this large and impressive sheet is a testament to the virtuosity of the Venetian artist’s draughtsmanship at the height of his career.

FRENCH SCHOOL

18th Century

An Emerald Tree Boa

Gouache on fine vellum, over traces of black chalk, within a gold border.

273 x 408 mm. (10 3/4 x 16 in.) [sheet]

The present sheet may be tentatively related to the series of natural history drawings known as the Vélins du Roi, commissioned from various artists for the French Royal Collection. The collection has its origins in the 17th century and the draughtsman Nicolas Robert (1614-1685), the most famous natural history artist of the day in France, who was particularly renowned for his watercolours of flowers, plants and birds, drawn on vellum. Robert came to the attention of Gaston, Duc d'Orléans, a devoted botanist whose garden at his château at Blois included several rare varieties of plants. Robert was commissioned to make watercolours of some of these, as well as others of animals and birds. Drawn on fine vellum, these exquisite drawings by Robert formed a major part of the five large folio volumes of vélins in Gaston d’Orléans's collection at the time of his death in 1660. The collection passed to Gaston’s nephew, Louis XIV.

Under the King's patronage, the commissioning of works to add to the collection, now known as the Vélins du Roi, was continued, and in 1666 Robert was appointed peintre ordinaire du Roi pour la miniature. His contract called for a minimum number of fifty-four vélins to be executed by Robert and his workshop for the Vélins du Roi each year. Botanical subjects were taken from the Jardin Royale in Paris, and the exotic species of birds and animals from the Ménagerie at Versailles. The practice of commissioning additions to the Vélins du Roi continued well into the 18th century, involving such artists as Gerard van Spaendonck and Pierre-Joseph Redouté. The Vélins du Roi can be identified by the fine quality of the vellum used and the gold borders framing the composition; each peintre du roi had his drawings mounted with his own distinctive gold border. However, while the vélins in the Royal collection have at best only cursory backgrounds, the presence of a highly finished landscape in this superb study of a snake suggests that it was intended for a private patron.

GAETANO GANDOLFI

San Matteo della Decima 1734-1802 Bologna
A Seated Male Nude
Black and red chalk, with touches of white chalk, on light brown paper.

414 x 287 mm. (16 1/4 x 11 1/4 in.)

A very similar drawing of a male nude in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, of comparable medium, handling and dimensions, was previously attributed to Ubaldo Gandolfi but is now given to his brother Gaetano, who more often used a combination of red and black chalk in his drawings. As Mimi Cazort and Catherine Johnston have noted, ‘Gaetano’s amazing prowess in this most Bolognese area, draughtsmanship of the human figure, is attested to quite early on in his career by the fact that while attending the Accademia between 1752 and 1756 he received the Fiori prize for drawing four times. We also know that he continued to draw from the model at the Accademia...throughout his career.’

GAETANO GANDOLFI

San Matteo della Decima 1734-1802 Bologna

The Head of a Young Woman in Profile

Pen and brown ink.

145 x 103 mm. (5 3/4 x 4 in.)

This drawing may be included among a number of elaborate pen and ink studies of heads—mainly of young women, but also depicting boys, old men, and children, and often with several heads on one sheet—that are among Gaetano Gandolfi’s most appealing works. These beautiful, highly finished drawings by Gandolfi were probably made as autonomous works of art for sale to collectors. At the same time, however, the precise nature of the artist’s penwork made them particularly suitable for reproduction as prints, and this is true of the present sheet. A splendid and charming example of the artist’s confident draughtsmanship, this drawing is a preparatory study, in reverse and of identical size, for one of Gaetano Gandolfi’s etchings, depicting The Head of a Woman in Profile to the Right. The small etching, one of Gaetano’s rare forays into the medium, has been dated to the late 1770s or 1780s.

Bologna 1764-1834 Bologna

Head of a Man in Profile to the Left

Pen and brown ink, with touches of brown wash.

144 x 108 mm. (5 5/8 x 4 1/4 in.)

Unlike his father Gaetano and uncle Ubaldo, Mauro Gandolfi enjoyed a relatively brief career as a painter, and it is as a draughtsman that he is best known. By 1794 he had been elected to the Accademia Clementina in Bologna, where he was later appointed to the post of professor of figure drawing. Mauro seems to have largely abandoned painting around the turn of the century in favour of working as a reproductive engraver. He also produced a number of highly finished drawings and watercolours for sale to collectors. Stylistically comparable heads appear in a sheet of studies of heads by Mauro Gandolfi in the collection of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice.

HUBERT ROBERT

Paris 1733-1808 Paris

Landscape with the Temple of Saturn, Rome

Watercolour, pen and grey ink and grey wash, over a counterproof in red chalk.

Signed H. Robert. in brown ink at the lower left.

368 x 291 mm. (14 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.)

Like Fragonard, Hubert Robert often made counterproofs of his red chalk drawings. This was an essential task, since by making a counterproof any excess red chalk dust—which otherwise might easily smear—would be removed from the original drawing. Often, the artist would then extensively rework the counterproof, adding pen, ink and wash and watercolour to create a second finished, albeit reversed, version of the original composition; such is the case with the present sheet. The original red chalk drawing for the present composition, executed in 1775, is today in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Valence, and is dated ‘du merc. 4 janvier 1775’, and was thus drawn a decade after the artist’s departure from Rome.

Located at the northwest corner of the Forum, the Temple of Saturn (also known as the Temple of Concord) was a favourite subject of Robert’s, and was treated by him in several drawings and paintings. Among other drawings by Robert of the Temple of Saturn, all in red chalk, are a pair of studies—one dated 1762—in the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Lyon, as well as another drawing, also dated 1762, in Valence and a drawing of Washerwomen in the Ruins of the Temple of Saturn in the Louvre. A capriccio watercolour view of the interior of the Temple of Saturn, dated 1774, is in the Cleveland Museum of Art and, like the present sheet, was drawn over a counterproof of a chalk drawing.

Text and images copyright © 2007-2010 by Stephen Ongpin Fine Art. No portion of this website may be transferred, copied, or reproduced in whole or in part in any manner or in any media without the prior written consent of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art.