A pair of pastoral landscapes with peasants and sheep

After training as a draughtsman at the Manufacture des Gobelins, Pillement travelled between Italy, London, Vienna, Poland and the Iberian peninsula. He spent the end of his career in France, spending several months in Pézenas in the Languedoc region. The present pair of pastels seems to be dating from this late period, circa 1790, a year on after his return to France, a time when he received numerous commissions from private collectors (M. Gordon-Smith, Pillement, Cracow, 2006, p. 245).The pastels are characteristically drawn directly onto a canvas prepared with a grey-blue monochrome and testify to this commercial aspect of the Pillement's artistic activity. They compare in style with a pastoral scene in a hilly landscape dated 1801 (private collection; see Gordon-Smith, op. cit., no. 305, ill.).