A stage design representing the appearance of God the Father, surrounded by angels, in a celestial palace

Upon his return from Rome in 1757, this trained architect joined the workshop of Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni (1695-1766), and worked with him on various theatrical sets. When this drawing was sold in 1992, it was linked by Monique Mosser, the co-organizer of the monographic exhibition on the artist of 1979, to a musical pantomime taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost: The Fall of the Rebel Angels. This theatrical piece was performed for the first time at the Salle des Machines at the Tuileries on March 12th, 1758. Few traces of the sets from this performance still exist, except from a brown wash drawing, depicting God sitting in a pool of light, surrounded by musical angels, set within architecture inundated by clouds, as in this drawing (Paris, Beaux-Arts, inv. 0927; Charles de Wailly. Peintre architecte dans l’Europe des Lumières, exhib. cat., Paris, Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites, 1979, p. 115, no. 75; Le Temple. Représentations de l’architecture sacrée, exhib. cat., Nice, Musée National du Message Biblique Marc Chagall, 1982, p. 189, no. 214, ill). De Wailly’s taste for baroque extravagance, with twisting columns echoing Bernini and chiaroscuro effects, make this a perfect example of his graphic work.