Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

A Group of six Drawings by Claude-Joseph Vernet from a Viennese Album (lots 139-144) The following six lots come from an album probably compiled in Vienna in the early 19th Century and dispersed at a sale in Versailles in 1966. Many of the mounts on which the drawings are laid down bear the unusual inscription in a Germanic hand 'Vernett'. The album of 53 sheets mostly of sites around Naples and Rome, may have reached Paris as early as 1825, according to a note still attached to the album at the 1966 sale. The album was bought at Antoine Augustin Renouard's sale, 20 November 1854, lot 628, by the antiquarian bookseller Potier, quai Malaquais. The whereabouts of the album remained unknown until it appeared at auction in 1966. Sheets from that album are now at the Louvre, at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans, and at the Courtauld Institute, London. Two were with Cailleux, one is now at Detroit, V. Carlson in The Collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts: Italian, French, English and Spanish Drawings and Watercolors, New York, 1992, no. 111, illustrated, and another with Rafael Valls, London. A drawing of the Castel Nuovo in Naples from this album is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, J. Bean and L. Turcic, 15th-18th Century French Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 306, illustrated. Another album of landscapes from the same Viennese source, bearing the same inscriptions, is now in the Albertina, Vienna, P. Conisbee, Claude-Joseph Vernet 1714-1789, exhib. cat., The Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London, 1976, nos. 51-2, 58-61, illustrated. The Albertina received the album in 1919 from the private collection of the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. The posthumous sale of the artist's studio in 1789 included nearly 700 drawings separated in few lots. The Albertina and Versailles albums must have been compiled from them: a number of sheets depicting the Castel Nuovo in Naples, including lot 140 and drawings in the Albertina, were numbered by Vernet in Roman numerals. Vernet's first professor in Avignon was a history painter, Sauvan. He left for Rome in 1734 under the protection of the Marquis de Caumont, with letters of recommendation to Adrien Manglard and Nicolas Vleughels, two keen landscapists. Vleughels who was then director of the French Academy in Rome permitted him to use the facilities of the Academy and gave him advice. By 1739 Vernet's reputation as a marine painter was well established, most of his inspiration being drawn from his travels to Naples from 1737 to 1750. Four of the present drawings are in red chalk. A drawing of similar technique displaying the same way of sketching figures as the one in lot 141 is part of the Albertina album, P. Conisbee, op. cit., fig. 11. Vernet's return to France in 1753 provides a terminus ante quem for that group of drawings. The technique of the red chalk drawings remarkably anticipates Robert and Fragonard of the 1760s.

Details

Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)

The Entrance to the Grotto at Posilipo

inscribed 'Grote de pousilipo' and with inscription on the mount 'Vernett'; black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash, watermark Strasburg lily C & I Honig, the backing with watermark twice encircled fleur-de-lys
345 x 496mm.

Provenance

From an album probably compiled in Vienna in the early 19th Century.
A.A. Renouard; Paris, 20 November 1854 (to Potier, antiquarian bookseller, quai Malaquais).
Anon. sale; Versailles, 13 March 1966, lot 161.

Lot Essay

Bergeret in his Voyage d'Italie in 1773-4 with Fragonard wrote on 25 April 1774 when in Naples: 'Après le dîner nous avons été en carrosse promener au Pausilipe. C'est une montagne située le long du bassin de Naples, au couchant, après le faubourg de Chiaia. Cette montagne est creusée sur une longueur de 450 toises, ce qu'on apelle la Grotta, sur 50 pieds de hauteur et 30 de largeur. On y voit clair par les deux extrémités et de plus par deux soupiraux. Il y a apparence qu'elle a été faite pour abrégér la chemin de Naples à Pouzol, qui passoit autrefois par dessus la montagne. C'est un ouvrage imposant et fort utile; on en donne différentes origines, mais on le croit plus ancien que la domination romaine'.
A drawing by Ducros in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne records the entrance to the grotto from the same viewpoint, N. Spinosa and L. Di Mauro, Vedute napoletane del settecento, Naples, 1989, no. 187, pl. 124.
Lot 141, a red chalk drawing, represents the same entrance to the grotta, seen from closer.

More from Old Master Drawings

View All