Details
LOUIS-JEAN DESPREZ (AUXERRE 1743-1804 STOCKHOLM)
Desprez, L.-J.
Vue des ruines du théâtre grec de Syracuse en Sicile
titré et signé ‘Vüe des Ruines du Grand Theatre/ de Syracuse. Des Prez’, ‘Vol. 4: Fig 285’ (verso du montage) et ‘Vue des Ruines du Grand Théâtre de Syracuse/ Des Prez del.’ (sur le montage)
graphite, plume et encre noire, aquarelle, dans son montage d’origine
22 x 36 cm (8 5/8 x 14 1/8 in.)
Engraved
par Jacques Joseph Coiny (1761-1809), dans J.C. Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, IV, 2e partie, Paris, 1786, no 112.
Further details
LOUIS-JEAN DESPREZ, RUINS OF THE GREEK THEATER OF SYRACUSE, BLACK CHALK, PEN AND BLACK INK, WATERCOLOUR ON ITS ORGINAL MOUNT, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED
Immediately after his arrival in Italy at the end of 1777, Jean-Louis Desprez began his major illustration project directed by the ‘Abbé’ Richard de Saint-Non for his book project, the Voyage pittoresque ou Description des royaumes Naples et Sicile. Desprez travelled through beautiful landscapes and saw remarkable buildings, accompanied by Claude-Louis Châtelet and Dominique-Vivant Denon, who also contributed to the illustrations and the text of the book’s text, respectively.
The drawings made during the trip were reworked by Desprez on his return to Rome in January 1779, and then sent to the Abbé de Saint-Non (U. Cerderlöf, La Chimère de monsieur Desprez, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1994, pp. 17-18; N. G. Wollin, Desprez en Italie. Dessins topographiques et d’architecture, décors de théatre et compositions romantiques, exécutés 1777-1784, Malmö, 1935, pp. 110-112). In Paris, a total of 135 Engravings after drawings by Desprez were produced by thirty-six engravers. In total, the book, published in five folio volumes between 1781 and 1786, is illustrated with 417 prints and 125 vignettes (N.G. Wollin, Gravures originales de Desprez, ou exécutées d’après ses dessin, Malmö, 1933, pp. 22-23). The following drawings are all preparatory to plates in the Voyage pittoresque.
‘We cannot doubt that this monument was one of the most sumptuous and magical theatres of antiquity, since Diodorus, speaking of the various edifices which adorned several cities of Sicily in its most beautiful days, and among others of the theatre of Argyrium as one of the most remarkable, says that that of Syracuse was superior to all the edifices of this kind in Sicily’(Voyage pittoresque, IV, second part, pp. 285-286).
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