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Lot Essay
This drawing comes from an album of architectural drawings that was disbound at the beginning of the 1970s. The stitching holes along the left margin of the sheet, where the page was removed from the binding, are still visible. This sheet, along with nine others, was sold at Christie’s in London on 4 July 2006 (lots 79-88). They are not designs for specific buildings, but show plan à plaisir or plans drawn for pleasure. The elegant façade depicted on this sheet is divided in five bays by columns in the Corinthian order. The central doorway is flanked by niches with statues of standing nude figures and is surmounted by the French Royal coat of arms. A balustrade crowns the top of the façade and its decorated with a relief of a mounted falconer and two female figures supporting a fleur-de-lys.
Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was an architect, but worked mainly as a printmaker and a draftsman. Perhaps as many as 2000 drawings by his hand are known today, almost all in public collections. Among these is an elaborate, fully intact, volume with ninety-eight drawings on vellum (depicting elevations, patterns, and layouts) at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (inv. 2006.19), while another volume from the Baberini collection is in the Vatican Library (inv. Cod. Barb. Lat. 4398; I.Toesca, ‘Drawings by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the Elder in the Vatican Library’, The Burlington Magazine, XCVIII, no. 638, May 1956, pp. 151-155). A third volume is in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden (inv. Ca 65/3-Ca 65/30). On 25 March 2005, the Louvre acquired an album of 28 sheets (inv. RF 54235) from Christie’s Paris (lot 334); and there are three other volumes of drawings on vellum in French museums: Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (inv. Cd 2698; The Renaissance in France. Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Museums, and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994-1995, p. 174, n. 2), the Petit Palais in Paris (inv. 188; ibid.) and the Musée Condé in Chantilly (ms. 396 [1918]; ibid.).
According to Pauline Chougnet and Jean-Philippe Garric, this kind of sumptuous albums was made to indulge the imagination and fantasies of erudite collectors (La Ligne et l’ombre. Dessins d’architectes XVIe-XIXe siècle, Paris, 2020, p. 57). Even though he was the official architect of Marguerite of Navarre, sister of François I, Androuet du Cerceau did not complete many buildings. Instead, he worked primarily on decorative projects, such as the grand entryway created for King Henri II in 1551. He started working for Renée de France, Duchess of Ferrara, in Montargis in 1564.
In addition to his drawings, Androuet du Cerceau created many architectural prints as illustrations to publications on a large scale. Among his most famous printed works is Les Plus excellents bastiments de France (Paris, 1576 and 1579), a work in two volumes featuring numerous examples of real buildings and castles of the French Renaissance. This publication greatly enhanced the artist’s reputation.
Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was an architect, but worked mainly as a printmaker and a draftsman. Perhaps as many as 2000 drawings by his hand are known today, almost all in public collections. Among these is an elaborate, fully intact, volume with ninety-eight drawings on vellum (depicting elevations, patterns, and layouts) at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (inv. 2006.19), while another volume from the Baberini collection is in the Vatican Library (inv. Cod. Barb. Lat. 4398; I.Toesca, ‘Drawings by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the Elder in the Vatican Library’, The Burlington Magazine, XCVIII, no. 638, May 1956, pp. 151-155). A third volume is in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden (inv. Ca 65/3-Ca 65/30). On 25 March 2005, the Louvre acquired an album of 28 sheets (inv. RF 54235) from Christie’s Paris (lot 334); and there are three other volumes of drawings on vellum in French museums: Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (inv. Cd 2698; The Renaissance in France. Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, exhib. cat., Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Museums, and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994-1995, p. 174, n. 2), the Petit Palais in Paris (inv. 188; ibid.) and the Musée Condé in Chantilly (ms. 396 [1918]; ibid.).
According to Pauline Chougnet and Jean-Philippe Garric, this kind of sumptuous albums was made to indulge the imagination and fantasies of erudite collectors (La Ligne et l’ombre. Dessins d’architectes XVIe-XIXe siècle, Paris, 2020, p. 57). Even though he was the official architect of Marguerite of Navarre, sister of François I, Androuet du Cerceau did not complete many buildings. Instead, he worked primarily on decorative projects, such as the grand entryway created for King Henri II in 1551. He started working for Renée de France, Duchess of Ferrara, in Montargis in 1564.
In addition to his drawings, Androuet du Cerceau created many architectural prints as illustrations to publications on a large scale. Among his most famous printed works is Les Plus excellents bastiments de France (Paris, 1576 and 1579), a work in two volumes featuring numerous examples of real buildings and castles of the French Renaissance. This publication greatly enhanced the artist’s reputation.