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Lot Essay
The details of the birth and artistic training of Claude-Louis Chatelet remain unknown to this day. Known primarily as a topographical draftsman and book illustrator, he is best remembered for his landscape drawings in watercolor and gouache. Chatelet seems to have completed only a handful of paintings, including views of Versailles and seascapes. His most important commission was the series of illustrations for the Abbé de Saint-Non's Voyage Pittoresque, ou description historique des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, published in five volumes in Paris between 1781 and 1786. For this ambitious publication, one of the most beautiful books of the 18th century, Saint-Non ordered drawings from Fragonard, Hubert Robert and Claude-Joseph Vernet among others. Chatelet was, along with Louis-Jean Desprez, responsible for the largest number of illustrations that were later published in the book.
Chatelet left Marseille for southern Italy in November 1777. There, he traveled in the company of Louis-Jean Desprez, Jean-Augustin Renard and Vivant Denon, Chargé d'Affaires in Naples. The present picture, dated 1777, is probably one of the first works that the artist painted in Italy. Another view of the same location (fig. 1) was later engraved by Couché in the fourth volume of the Voyage Pittoresque... (pl. 13).
The present painting shows the ruins of the antique theater at Taormina, located at the top of a hill with ruined tombs in the foreground. The site is described with enthusiasm by Saint-Non himself: 'il est vrai qu'il est impossible de trouver en même temps une route et plus curieuse et plus amusante à faire par la beauté et la richesse des sites que l'on rencontre à tout moment' (A. de Saint-Non, Voyage Pittoresque..., IV, p. 31).
Chatelet left Marseille for southern Italy in November 1777. There, he traveled in the company of Louis-Jean Desprez, Jean-Augustin Renard and Vivant Denon, Chargé d'Affaires in Naples. The present picture, dated 1777, is probably one of the first works that the artist painted in Italy. Another view of the same location (fig. 1) was later engraved by Couché in the fourth volume of the Voyage Pittoresque... (pl. 13).
The present painting shows the ruins of the antique theater at Taormina, located at the top of a hill with ruined tombs in the foreground. The site is described with enthusiasm by Saint-Non himself: 'il est vrai qu'il est impossible de trouver en même temps une route et plus curieuse et plus amusante à faire par la beauté et la richesse des sites que l'on rencontre à tout moment' (A. de Saint-Non, Voyage Pittoresque..., IV, p. 31).