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Paintings and drawings from the 17th to the 19th century
Charles-Louis Clérisseau (Paris, 1721 - Auteuil, 1820)
Decorative project.
Antique house, Tsarkoe-Selo gardens for Catherine The Great.
December 1773.
Watercolour, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash on paper.
On the back: stamp of the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky.
H: 33; W: 32 cm.
Framed by friezes of foliage and medallions representing ancient scenes, animated ruins are depicted in the centre of this study sheet. The plinth of the wall on which the decoration was to be placed is shown, completed by a few mouldings, giving an idea of the monumental scale planned for this project.
A pupil of Blondel and Boffrand at the Royal Academy of Architecture, Charles-Louis Clérisseau won the Grand Prix in 1746 and stayed in Rome as a student of the Académie de France in Rome 1749 to 1754. There he painted architectural compositions influenced by the master of the genre, Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765). He became a friend with Piranesi, whose taste for ruins and passion for ancient Rome he shared. Although the rules of the Académie de France in Rome authorised him to stay for two or three years to perfect his artistic education, he extended his pension before leaving the Académie abruptly in 1754. He stayed in Rome, made trips to Venice and Paestum, before returning to France in 1768.
On his return to Paris, he was accepted into the Académie royale on 2 September 1769, presenting two gouaches: Baths and Architectural Ruins. His career took a decisive turn when he was chosen by the administration of the Bâtiments du Roi to execute a commission for Catherine The Great. Clérisseau was recommended by Falconet, a close friend of the empress.
On 2 September 1773, Catherine The Great, inspired by Michel François Dandré Bardon's book Collection of ancient costumes (Paris, 1772)[1], wrote to Falconet: « I would like to have a drawing of an antique house, with an antique interior layout. [...] I want it all; I beg you to help me fulfil this fantasy, which I will no doubt pay for.[2] ». In this letter, she asked Falconet to write to Charmes Cochin, secretary of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, asking him to provide her with the name of an architect who could create a house in the antique style in the gardens of Tsarskoe-Selo. Cochin proposed Clérisseau in November.
On 6 December, the Empress wrote: « I have found the letter from Cochin that you sent me. I agree with him and with you that he could not have chosen a better person for the antique house than he did; Mr Clérisseau seems to have all the qualities required to carry out to perfection the project for the antique house that I have in mind.[3]».
Driven by his characteristic taste for the colossal, and echoing his Roman studies of ancient monuments, Clérisseau took no account of the programme transmitted by Falconet in the twenty-four drawings he sent to the Empress. He transformed the little caprice commissioned into a gigantic palace on the scale of the Baths of Caracalla.
In a letter to the Prince of Galitzine from the end of December, Falconet reported on the poor reception of Clérisseau's drawings: « It has been shown that M. Clérisseau is as impertinent as he pretends to be deaf. You have seen, my prince, everything I wrote in Paris about the ancient house and you know that the request from His Majesty I contained nothing other than a small pavilion in a garden. You have read the cursed project, which would have involved building an immense palace three times the size of the Empress'. It has put H.M.I. in a very bad mood, and rightly Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Project for the antique house, interior elevation, Hermitage Museum (inventory number unknown).
so. [...] Her Imperial Highness no longer wants anything, absolutely anything, from this shop.[4] »
Apart from this work, several other drawings in the Hermitage bear witness to Clérisseau's work on Catherine The Great's antique house. One of them, depicting a niche decorated with a statue, is particularly close to our drawing in its multiple panels with candelabra and arabesque motifs, as well as its medallions with antique scenes. A complete view of a section of wall also reproduces the same structure on the central panels.
Illustrations :
Charles Louis Clérisseau, Ruin of a temple, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash on paper; 30.5 x 36.5 cm, private collection: sale, Paris, Artcurial, 4 February 2011, no. 46
Charles Louis Clérisseau, Architectural fantaisie, 1782, gouache, pen and brown wash, underlined with Indian ink on paper, 47.1 x 60.5 cm. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum (Inv. OP-16919).
Charles Louis Clérisseau, Interior decoration project for Catherine The Great, pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash on paper, 35.3 x 30.3 cm. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum (Inv. OP-2606).
Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer, View of the Grand Salon of the Hôtel Grimod de La Reynière in Paris, watercolour on paper, Warsaw University Library.
Detail of the stamp on the back of the drawing.
Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Project for the antique house, interior elevation, Hermitage Museum (inventory number unknown).
Bibilography :
[1] Thomas J. McCormick, Charles Louis Clérisseau and the genesis of neo-classicism, 1990.
[2] Louis Réau, Correspondance de Falconet avec Catherine II, 1767-1778, Paris, E. Champion, 1921, p. 217.
[3] Idem, p. 229.
[4] Idem, p. 231.
