拍品专文
Following his initial training in his native city of Antwerp, Denis moved to Paris in the early 1780s where he gained the patronage of the genre painter and dealer, Jean-Baptiste Lebrun. With Lebrun's support Denis traveled to Rome in 1786 where he rapidly established himself.
His reputation continued to grow through the 1790s and into the opening years of the new century, prior to his departure for Naples in 1806, where he took up his appointment as court painter to Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples.
The present sketch can be placed in the last decade of the 18th century and compared with two cloud studies in a private collection, New York. As in those works, Denis seems to have to have been most interested in depicting the play of color and light through the sky. He adopts a formula employed by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819) - whom he may have met in Paris between 1784-6 - in anchoring his predominently aerial study with a much smaller strip of landscape.
His reputation continued to grow through the 1790s and into the opening years of the new century, prior to his departure for Naples in 1806, where he took up his appointment as court painter to Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples.
The present sketch can be placed in the last decade of the 18th century and compared with two cloud studies in a private collection, New York. As in those works, Denis seems to have to have been most interested in depicting the play of color and light through the sky. He adopts a formula employed by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819) - whom he may have met in Paris between 1784-6 - in anchoring his predominently aerial study with a much smaller strip of landscape.