Jean-Baptiste Oudry

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Jean-Baptiste Oudry
1686-1755
View from the First Grand Terrace at Arcueil
ca. 1744-1747
Black chalk, with stumping, white chalk, with stumping and in places worked wet, with brown wash, on blue paper.
11 13/16 x 20 1/4 inches (302 x 523 mm)
Purchased on the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Fund 1978.
1990.24
Notes: 

Arcueil, a commune just south of Paris celebrated for its Roman aqueduct, was also the site of a chateau with an extensive, structured garden since the sixteenth century. After over a century of enrichments and expansions, the gardens were revamped to suit rococo tastes between 1720 and 1730 by the chateau's proprietor, Anne-Marie-Joseph de Lorraine (1679-1739), the prince de Guise, and his architect Jean-Michel Chevotet. Beginning around 1744 and lasting for roughly a decade, Arcueil became a destination for artists working en plein air including Oudry, Charles-Joseph Natoire, and Francois Boucher. The gardens were no longer fully maintained and the increasingly unkempt and ruinous landscape held a particular aesthetic appeal. Between 1744 and 1747, Oudry drew the site repeatedly, yielding at least fifty extant views. Drawings of the park by Oudry and his contemporaries were the subject of a 2016 exhibition at the Louvre which explored the complicated history of the gardens and documented Oudry's activity at the site.
The present sheet depicts the first Grand Terrace of the new chateau. The artist has altered the perspective in order to provide a more expansive view of the site, reducing the width of the allées. At center, beyond a basin with a water feature, the staircase leading to the terrace surrounding the chateau is visible. The path at left leads to the first intermediary terrace north of the chateau, while the one at right leads to a balustrade above the cascades opposite the west facade of the chateau.

Inscription: 

Watermark: Letters "M", "GIS", "M" centered between chain lines, "GI" paired between next set of chain lines, "S" between chain lines.

Provenance: 
Etienne Claude Desperet (1804-1865), Paris (Lugt 721); his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 7-13 June 1865, part of lot 449; Jean Masson (1856-1933), Paris (Lugt 1494a); his sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 7-8 May 1923, lot 177, repr.; acquired from Katrin Bellinger, Munich.
Watermark: 
Associated names: 

Desperet, E., 1804-1865, former owner.
Masson, Jean, former owner.
Bellinger, Katrin, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 40, repr. in color.
Denison, Cara D., with Stephanie Wiles and Ruth S. Kraemer. Fantasy and Reality : Drawings from the Sunny Crawford von Bülow Collection. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1995, cover and no. 4, both repr. in color.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 76, p. 160-161.
Salmon, Xavier, ed. A l'ombre des frondaisons d'Arcueil: dessiner un jardin du XVIIIe siecle, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2016, no. 32.

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