Pwt 24 2016 Before Daguerre: Dark Romanticism

WEEKLY TRANSMISSION N°24

THURSDAY 16TH JUNE 2016

n°4, detail

BEFORE DAGUERRE : VISUAL BOLDNESS IN THE EARLY DAYS OF DARK ROMANTICISM

PWT 24-2016 CONTENTS : The French Academy in Rome, a creative center for visual arts in the 1820s Laure Odiot meets her husband Louis Benois and his friends from Rome Granet, Alaux, Lesueur, Barbot, Destouches, sixteen drawings 1820-1826 Louis Benois, camera lucida drawing 1821

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The e-bulletin presents articles as well as selections of books, albums, photographs drawings and ancient documents as they have been handed down to the actual owners by their creators and by amateurs from past generations.

The physical descriptions, attributions, origins, and printing dates of the books and photographs have been carefully ascertained by collations and through close analysis of comparable works.

When items are for sale, the prices are in Euros, and Paypal is accepted.

N°24 : Before Daguerre, Visual Boldness

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Thursday 16 June 2016

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Antoine-Martin GARNAUD (1796-1861) prix de Rome

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The Academy of France in Rome during the Early Days of Romanticism Villa Medici appears as an influencial place for the early days of Photography, from the experiment of Girault de Prangey in May 1842 untill the Golden Age of the Caffé Grecco School in the 1850s. Now we could also consider the period of the 1820s as a decisive moment for Visual creativity. « The Academy was founded at the Palazzo Capranica in 1666 by Louis XIV under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Charles Le Brun and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Academy was from the 17th to 19th centuries the culmination of study for select French artists who, having won the prestigious Prix de Rome (Rome Prize), were honored with a 3, 4 or 5-year scholarship (depending on the art discipline they followed) in the Eternal City for the purpose of the study of art and architecture... In 1803 Napoleon Bonaparte moved it to the Villa Medici, with the intention of perpetuating an institution once threatened by the French Revolution and, thus, of retaining for young French artists the opportunity to see and copy the masterpieces of the Antiquity or the Renaissance and send back to Paris their "envois de Rome", the results of the inspiration they had gained in Rome... » (Wikipedia)

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Laure Odiot at the age of 18

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The Album Amicorum of Laure Odiot Maison Odiot, in English "House of Odiot", was established in 1690, during the reign of Louis XV, by Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot, considered a fine silversmith.

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte gave Jean-Baptiste Claude, grandson of Jean-Baptiste Gaspard, many prestigious commissions for himself and his family, such as the sacred scepter and sword and the King of Rome's cradle. Immense dinner services were ordered by Pauline Borghèse, by her mother and by the Emperor himself.

Jean-Baptiste Claude (1762-1850) was influenced by the return of the classical Greek and Egyptian motifs as expressed in the Directoire and Empire styles. Court commissions help further the reputation of Maison Odiot, and the firm provided vermeil (silver gilt with gold) services to courts across European.

He lived in a beautiful maison de plaisance near the Champs Èlysées, with a park, now rue Washington, 75016 Paris.

His daughter Aimée-Laure Odiot (1805-1896) was his eighth child. On May 4th 1824, she married Louis Benois (1796-1873), a French architect born in Saint-Petersburg, returning from two years in Rome and Italy 1821-1822, and who had met a number of French and international artists, painters, architects and sculptors who would provide projects, drawings and poems for Laure’ personal Album. Laure dedicated herself to drawing, engraving, colouring and ink-wash painting. She had a very long life, spending the last years in RueilMalmaison, a western suburb of Paris. Laure’s Album Amicorum resurfaced at the beginning of this year 2016, not long after the strange story of the mummy of a child discovered in the city of Rueil-Malmaison. Following a fundraising campaign by the city, the mummy was restored by Dr Laure Cadot who specialises in human remains, at the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musée de France.

The Album Amicorum had a serious water damage affecting the back of the elegant binding and the inner margins of the leaves, but fortunately damaged only one of the drawings.

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Thursday 16 June 2016

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PROSPER BARBOT (1798-1878), Frontispiece for Laure, Rome, 1826. Wash drawing on paper, 161x205 mm, signed and dated 1826, frontispiece page of the Album Amicorum of Laure Odiot-Benois (leaf 1).

400 euros French landscape painter Barbot was the companion of Jean-Baptiste Corot, Guillaume Bodinier and Louis LĂŠopold Robert in Rome and Italy between 1824 and 1828.

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JEAN ALAUX called ÂŤ LE ROMAIN Âť (1786-1864), Lights and shadows, Rome, 1825. Wash drawing on paper, 163x111 mm, signed and dated 1825, from the Album Amicorum of Laure Odiot-Benois (Leaf 2).

800 euros Young brother of the inventor of Neorama (variant of Diorama), pensionnaire at the Villa Medici from 1816 to 1820, and eventually went on to become its director in 1847.

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JEAN-BAPTISTE LESUEUR (1794-1883), Dark Corridor, Rome, 1825. Wash drawing on paper, 151x111 mm, signed and dated 1825 in the lower left angle, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 3).

1.500 euros Premier grand prix de Rome d’architecture, 1819 with a project of graveyard.

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FRANÇOIS MARIUS GRANET (1775-1849), Dark silhouette, Rome, 1821. Washrawing on paper, 150x111 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 3).

4.000 euros In 1802, Granet left Paris for Rome, where he remained until 1819, becoming a close friend of Ingres. In the changing lights and shadows of the corridors of a convent, Granet found the materials for that one picture to which, with varying success, he devoted his life.

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FRANÇOIS MARIUS GRANET (1775-1849), Porte de ville, Tivoli, 1821. Washrawing on paper, 115x555 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 13).

1.500 euros In 1819, Louis Philippe decorated Granet, and afterwards named him Chevalier de l'Ordre St Michel, and Conservateur des tableaux de Versailles (1826). He became a member of the institute in 1830; but in spite of these honours, and the ties which bound him to M. de Forbin, then director of the Louvre, Granet constantly returned to Rome and his paintings are all marked by the same peculiarities: everything is sacrificed to tone. Daguerre’s works present several similarities with Granet such as repetition of motifs, light and shadows effects, etc...

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PROSPER BARBOT (1798-1878), Ruins, Rome, 1821. Wash drawing and watercolors on paper, 142x217 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 38).

800 euros

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LOUIS-MARIE-NICOLAS DESTOUCHES (1789-1850), Dark Arches, Rome, 1820. Drawing on paper, 118x77 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum (Leaf 23).

800 euros Student of Charles Percier, Premier grand prix de Rome d’architecture, 1814.

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AXEL NYSTROM (1793-1868), City Gate, Rome, 1822. Drawing on paper, 138x107 mm, signed and dated 1822, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 17).

800 euros «År 1821 reste Nyström i sällskap med Bengt Erland Fogelberg till Italien, där han större delen av tiden arbetade i Rom».

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AUGUSTIN ENFANTIN (1793-1827), Broken Ark, 1820s. Drawing on paper, 150x115 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 39).

400 euros Famous for his romantic landscapes realised for Baron Taylor’s project, Enfantin exhibited in the Paris Salon several paintings of his travels in Italy.

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ATTR. À LOUIS BENOIS (1796-1873), Dark silhouette on a staircase, Rome, 1821. Tiny wash drawing on paper, 115x70 mm, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 11).

400 euros Louis Benois, French architect born in Saint-Petersbourg, Russia, during French revolution, married Laure Odiot in 1824 after his return from Rome.

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ATTR. À LOUIS BENOIS (1796-1873), Light in a basement, Velletri c. 1821. Wash drawing, 150x95 mm, titled in lower margin, Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 11).

500 euros

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JEAN-THOMAS THIBAULT (1757-1826), Architectural Invention, Rome, 1821. Drawing on paper, 98x164 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 54).

1.500 euros In Laure Odiot’s collection are four drawings by French painter and architect Thibault. He was the very best friend of Charles Percier in early age. He managed to get to Rome on his own expenses between 1786 and 1790.

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ACHILLE VIANELLI (1803-1894), «Tasso’s Franciscan Convent», Ferrara, 1820s. Wash drawing on paper, 178x280 mm, signed and captioned: «Convento dove fu rinchiuso Torquato Tasso a Ferrara», from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 22).

1.500 euros Tasso stayed in a Franciscan convent at Ferrara, for the express purpose of attending to his health. There the dread of being murdered by the duke took firm hold on his mind. He escaped at the end of July, disguised as a peasant... The conclusions were that Tasso, after the beginning of 1575, became the victim of a mental malady, which, without amounting to actual insanity, rendered him fantastical and unbearable, a cause of anxiety to his patrons.

Born in Porto Maurizio, near Genoa, Vianelli moved as a child to Otranto, where his father was consul for the French government. In 1819, he moved to Naples, where he first worked in the Royal Topographic Office, where he met Giacinto Gigante.

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NO NAME, Nowhere, No Place, 1820s. Drawing on paper, 203x140 mm, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 13).

500 euros

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PAUL GLON VILLENEUVE (1803-c1842), Chapelle saint-They, Baie des Trépassés, Cap Sizun, Bretagne, 1820s. Drawing on paper, 96x135 mm, identified by Laure Odiot (Album Amicorum, Leaf 56).

900 euros Born 1803, in Brest. Painter. Landscapes. A pupil of Watelet; exhibited at the Salon from 1831 to 1841. One of his paintings is on show in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris since 1835 (Clinique du Docteur Blanche).

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Thursday 16 June 2016

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THOMAS LEVERTON DONALDSON (1795-1885), Antre corycien sur le sommet de Parnasse The Corycian Cave on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in Greece, 1822. Watercolour on paper, 160x270 mm, signed and dated Rome, 1822, pencil, verso, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 38).

1.800 euros Donaldson travelled overseas after leaving school, obtaining a clerical job with a merchant on the Cape of Good Hope before volunteering for an expedition to attack the Frenchcontrolled island of Mauritius in 1810. Once back in London, he was employed in his father's office, before visiting Italy and Greece from 1818 to 1823 to broaden his experience...

Donaldson pioneered the academic study of architecture and in 1841 became the first Professor of Architecture at University College London — a post he retained until 1865. He was also a co-founder of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1834.

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Thursday 16 June 2016

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LOUIS BENOIS (1796-1873), Camera Lucida drawing, Temple de la Fortune, Rome, 1821.

Drawing on paper, 160x220 mm, initialed and dated 1821, from the Album Amicorum of Laure (Leaf 23). Villa Medici was a pioneering school of camera lucida.

1.000 euros

n°15, detail

Number Twenty-Four, Second Season, of the Weekly Transmission has been uploaded on Thursday 16th June 2016 at 15:15 (Paris time).

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