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Landscape with Figures by a Stream before a Monastery

Creator: Jean-Baptiste Lallemand
Offered by: L' Antiquaire & The Connoisseur, Inc.

Description
The Romanesque complex of ecclesiastical buildings depicted in this pastoral landscape has yet to be identified. Like the gouache by Lallemand in the Pierpont Morgan Library ( see C.D. Denison, Fantasy and Reality: Drawings from the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Collection, exc. Cat., New York, 1995, no. 10), it seems most likely that this fully realized gouache was intended to be decorative and does not represent a specific site. While the artist most likely painted the Morgan gouache while he was working on the ninety-nine plates for the fifth volume of the Description générale et particulière ou Voyage pittoresque de la France (Paris, 1781), which describes, amongst other places, the Franche-Comté, Bourgogne, and Lyonnais, the present gouache may well date from Lallemand’s Italian sojourn.
Born in Dijon, Lallemand traveled to Paris, and was accepted into the Académie de St. Luc there in 1745. Soon after, he went to Rome to continue his studies. Although most of his topographical drawings are executed in pen and ink, he is most admired for his gouache landscapes, and received special praise for them from Pierre-Jean Mariette. This great critic and connoisseur noted that Lallemand was painting landscapes in the manner of the Dutch artist, Gaspar van Wittel, whose name became Vanvitelli in Italy, the most renowned landscape painter of the early eighteenth century, writing “…il s’est occupé à peindre des veues dans le gout de celles qu’a peint Gasparo de gli Occhiali [as Vanvitelli was known]; mais ce qu’il fait me paroit plus cru et plus pesant de touché. J’en ai vû cependant de lui executes à guazze qui n’ètoient pas sans mérite. (see P.J. Mariette, Abecedario, Paris, vol. III, 1854-56, p. 54).
After a brief stay in Lyon, Lallemand returned to Paris in 1762. He exhibited fairly regularly at the Academy in Paris, and may also have worked in England, since a still life of his was exhibited in London in 1773. It is also interesting to note, in the English connection, that Lord Elgin purchased a large group of landscape drawings by Lallemand in 1799.

More Information

Documentation:	Signed
Notes:	Signed in ink on lower left: J. Lallemand
Origin:	France
Period:	18th Century
Materials:	Gouache over preliminary indications in graphite on paper; ruled border in black ink
Condition:	Good.
Creation Date:	1716-1803
Styles / Movements:	Old Master, Other
Incollect Reference #:	305341