Offered by Galerie Léage
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This small rectangular painting in stamped pewter, enhanced with gold and gouache represents a view of the Château de Choisy from the Cour d'Honneur.
The courtyard facade of the château is described with great precision thanks to the stamping technique. It corresponds to the new facade with an Ionic order built by Gabriel at Louis XV’ request, marking the central front facade. Two main buildings framing the courtyard are marked by projecting front facades also decorated with triangular pediments. The foundations and the corners of the ensemble are underlined by moldings. The whole is topped by a mansard roof punctuated by dormers and pairs of oculi above the pediments of the two wings.
The courtyard is framed by gates beyond which one can see the park, thanks to a row of trees on the left, while an interruption of this one allows to reach a second courtyard on the left in which one can see another building in the extension of the main facade. This one corresponds to the wing that the Princess of Conti had built, facing the Seine.
In the foreground, numerous characters decorate the courtyard, in the middle of which circulates a horse-drawn carriage. These characters are enhanced with gouache, as well as the slightly pink sky which colors evoke the end-of-the-day light.
The château details, described through the stamping of the pewter plate, such as the enameled roof and the foliage of the trees, make this representation particularly precise and lively.
A green enameled frame with a striated pattern embellishes the outline of the painting.
Paintings in Compigné
Of great preciosity and variety of materials, the paintings in Compigné were made according to a mysterious process starting from a sheet of tortoiseshell or cardboard to which a pewter or gold leaf was applied. The surface could then be decorated with gold, silver, gouache and colored varnishes. These miniatures, known today under the name of Compigné, encountered a major success in the 1760s.The small format, characteristic of this production, required to work in extreme precision, probably with the help of a magnifying glass, in order to develop the perfection of these technical details and colors.
The views of the Château de Choisy appear to have been quite successful, as several similar examples are known today: repeating the same theme, the artist managed to use different colors and to modify the composition as well as the frames. They were often presented in pairs, associating a view of the courtyard with a view of the Seine.
Thomas Compigné
Thomas Compigni probably arrived from Italy around 1750, and later on took the name Compigné when he settled in the shop Roi David, rue Greneta, in Paris. As a tabletier, he specialized in the manufacture and sale of boxes, knitting sets, draughts and chess sets, snuffboxes and other cane handles of blond tortoiseshell inlaid with gold. Renowned for the quality of his objects, he passed on to posterity through the production of precious paintings which technique remains unknown to that day. In 1773, he presented two views of the Château de Saint-Hubert to the King and obtained the title of “tabletier privilégié du Roi” under Louis XV and Louis XVI. His themes of predilection were most often views of towns, monuments and châteaux in the extension of park or landscape perspective. The ensembles were almost always animated by small characters.
