Anthelme-François LAGRENEE
Paris, 1774 – 1832
View of the Bourbon Palace (?), through trees
Black chalk, gray ink and wash, highlights of white gouache on beige paper laid down by the high border to an old mounty.
165 x 219 mm – 6 1/2 x 8 5/8 in.
Signed « Lagrenée » at the bottom right and numbered 17 at the top right.
Anthelme-François Lagrenée, born December 14, 1774 and died April 27, 1832, was a French painter, son of Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée. He studied in Vincent’s studio then had to give up fine arts for a while to satisfy military requisition in 1793, before returning to painting and exhibiting at the Salon from 1799. Like his father and uncle, he traveled to Russia where he enjoyed the favor of Emperor Alexander I. Residing for several years in the city of Saint Petersburg, he painted several portraits for the emperor, as well as historical paintings. On his return to France, he devoted himself mainly to cameos and miniatures.
Anthelme-François remains best known for his miniatures even if a spectacular drawing of a Greek warrior chased by a tiger while his horse is attacked by two lions recently entered the market and joined the Art Institute of Chicago [i].
The Louvre keeps travel diaries and landscape drawings to which ours can be compared. So this view of the Louvre through the trees (Ill. 1) whose treatment of foliage is comparable. We also find the same signature on this other drawing from a staircase near a low wall framed by trees (Ill. 2). The building sketched in the background recalls the facade of the Palais Bourbon, a hypothesis supported by the existence of this view of the Louvre of the same kind.
Condition report – Good general condition. Two small tears on the bottom edge, in the middle.
[i] Alexandre Lafore – Article by The Art Tribune from September 13, 2023
