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Lot Essay
In 1867, De Nittis left Italy for Paris to be trained under Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts. He remained in France for the rest of his career, first exhibiting at the Salon of 1869, and continuing to do so throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In Paris, he moved in a circle that included his fellow Italians, Boldini, Michetti and Cecioni, as well as Edgar Degas, who introduced him to a number of artists involved in the Impressionist movement. De Nittis became a champion of what Charles Baudelaire called ‘the heroism of modern life’; a flaneur. De Nittis was drawn to the life of the boulevards, the Tuileries and the horse races of Auteuil and Longchamp.
The present work was possibly executed in 1876, soon after the restoration work on the Arc de Triomphe were finished.
Following damage in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the Arc underwent restoration work in the mid-1870s. In his celebrated views of Paris, De Nittis was particularly drawn to subjects which represented the city’s rebirth. Painted the same year as the present work, the oil of Place des pyramides in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (fig. 1), depicts the reconstruction of the west wing of the Louvre, following arson committed during the Commune of 1871.
In this quintessential evocation of the Belle Époque, most likely painted en plein air, De Nittis demonstrated his accomplishment as a watercolourist. He uses a simple palette of colours and applies these with energetic flourishes, and subtle tonal gradations which build up volume in the figures. Further adopting the Impressionist expression of natural light, the figures are silhouettes. Representative of his atmospheric landscapes, the present painting is a perfect example of De Nittis’s Impressionist work.
The present work was possibly executed in 1876, soon after the restoration work on the Arc de Triomphe were finished.
Following damage in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the Arc underwent restoration work in the mid-1870s. In his celebrated views of Paris, De Nittis was particularly drawn to subjects which represented the city’s rebirth. Painted the same year as the present work, the oil of Place des pyramides in the Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (fig. 1), depicts the reconstruction of the west wing of the Louvre, following arson committed during the Commune of 1871.
In this quintessential evocation of the Belle Époque, most likely painted en plein air, De Nittis demonstrated his accomplishment as a watercolourist. He uses a simple palette of colours and applies these with energetic flourishes, and subtle tonal gradations which build up volume in the figures. Further adopting the Impressionist expression of natural light, the figures are silhouettes. Representative of his atmospheric landscapes, the present painting is a perfect example of De Nittis’s Impressionist work.