拍品專文
Baron Julien Bonaventure de Coubertin served as aide-de-camp to the Duc de Luxembourg, the restored King Louis XVIII's ambassador extraordinary to Brazil in 1816. The Duc de Luxembourg's embassy arrived in Brazil in 1816 and brought a French artistic mission charged with the foundation of an Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and included the disaffected bonapartist painters Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (for whom see lot 11), Jean-Baptiste Debret and the architect Grandjean de Montigny, in a large party of artists, architects, craftsmen and scientists under the direction of Joachim Lebreton, the erstwhile Secretary of the Institut des Beaux Arts, Paris.
Coubertin's sketches concentrate on subjects in Rio de Janeiro and include copies of compositions by other French artists in the mission, most notably the watercolour of the Duc de Luxembourg's residence in Rio (and the two lithographs of the same subject) which follows the direction of the large painting sold in these Rooms 6 June 1996, lot 21 (part). Coubertin's album also includes a pencil sketch of a Botocudo Indian, head and shoulders, which follows a watercolour by Debret (private collection, Rio de Janeiro). Another of Coubertin's sketches is inscribed 'copié d'après Clarac' and follows a landscape by the Comte de Clarac, a polyglot in the Duc du Luxembourg's retinue who sketched during his brief stay in Brazil in 1816 and exhibited a Brazilian subject at the Salon in Paris in 1819.
Two sketches show the house of the English consul ('Maison du consul anglais' and 'Maison de Chamberlain'), Sir Henry Chamberlain, Consul-General and Chargé d'Affaires in Rio de Janeiro from 1815 to 1829 and father of the soldier and artist Lieutenant Henry Chamberlain. A further two views show the house of the Comte d'Asseca in the Tijuca hills, where Taunay and the majority of the French settled in Rio: 'A great part of this mountainous district is the patrimony of the Viscount d'Asseca, who, however, derived little advantage from his extensive possessions until lately, when various portions have been brought into cultivation by emigrants from Europe, particularly by the French'. (Lieut. Chamberlain, Views and Costumes of the City and Neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, London, 1822, opp. pl. 3).
Coubertin's sketches concentrate on subjects in Rio de Janeiro and include copies of compositions by other French artists in the mission, most notably the watercolour of the Duc de Luxembourg's residence in Rio (and the two lithographs of the same subject) which follows the direction of the large painting sold in these Rooms 6 June 1996, lot 21 (part). Coubertin's album also includes a pencil sketch of a Botocudo Indian, head and shoulders, which follows a watercolour by Debret (private collection, Rio de Janeiro). Another of Coubertin's sketches is inscribed 'copié d'après Clarac' and follows a landscape by the Comte de Clarac, a polyglot in the Duc du Luxembourg's retinue who sketched during his brief stay in Brazil in 1816 and exhibited a Brazilian subject at the Salon in Paris in 1819.
Two sketches show the house of the English consul ('Maison du consul anglais' and 'Maison de Chamberlain'), Sir Henry Chamberlain, Consul-General and Chargé d'Affaires in Rio de Janeiro from 1815 to 1829 and father of the soldier and artist Lieutenant Henry Chamberlain. A further two views show the house of the Comte d'Asseca in the Tijuca hills, where Taunay and the majority of the French settled in Rio: 'A great part of this mountainous district is the patrimony of the Viscount d'Asseca, who, however, derived little advantage from his extensive possessions until lately, when various portions have been brought into cultivation by emigrants from Europe, particularly by the French'. (Lieut. Chamberlain, Views and Costumes of the City and Neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, London, 1822, opp. pl. 3).