Christ among the doctors

After training in Rome and a career as a history painter in Paris, Charles-Joseph Natoire returned to the Eternal City as head of the Académie de France in Rome (1751-1777). According to Susanna Caviglia this drawing ‘is a fine example of Natoire’s sensitivity in the use of wash’ from the period between 1755 and 1765. The two figures in profile in the foreground are reminiscent of the monks from the Camaldolese monastery in Frascati depicted in a series of Landscapes in the Musée Atger in Montpellier (inv. MA 57, album M 43 f° 18; Caviglia, op. cit., no. D675; and inv. MA 11, album M 43 f° 15; ibid., no. D677).