Our
drawing is a preparatory drawing, probably executed in the open
air, for the much more accomplished drawing on the same subject from the Metropolitan Museum in New
York/ Notre dessin est un dessin préparatoire, probablement exécuté en plein air, pour le dessin beaucoup plus abouti sur le même sujet du Metropolitan Museum de New York.
Provenance
Ullmann collection (stamped on the back)
This very modern drawing presents a
view of Ariccia, a small town 25 kilometres south-east of Rome. The Palazzo
Chigi (in which the film-maker Luchino Visconti would film a large part of The
Leopard a century later) and the adjoining church are seen from the
bottom of the ravine that surrounds the town.This drawing is a moving
testimony to the attraction of the city for artists of the Romantic period, who
established in Ariccia a vivid artists' colony.
1.
Achille Bénouville, a French landscape painter in
Italy
Achille Bénouville is
probably the main representative of what could be defined as the third (and, so
to speak, last) generation of neo-classical and/or historical landscape
painters. Born in the 1810s and 1820s, Félix Lanoue, Paul Flandrin, Eugène
Ferdinand Buttura or Alfred de Curzon are Bénouville’s contemporaries.
A pupil of François-Edouard
Picot (1786 - 1868) and then of Léon Cogniet (1794 - 1880), Bénouville quickly
specialised in landscape painting, starting with views of the Paris basin,
which he exhibited at the 1834 Salon. He visited Italy three times, in 1838,
1840 and 1843. During his last trip in 1843, he became friends with Jean-Baptiste
Corot (1796 - 1875) and shared his Roman studio.
After winning the
historical landscape prize in 1845 (the same year his brother Léon won the
Grand Prix de Rome for painting), he returned to Italy to spend three years at
the Villa Medici. He then settled in Italy for 25 years, until the death of his
wife in 1870, an event that led to his return to France.
2. Description of the artwork
From a viewpoint located below the
town, the artist depicts the main monuments of Ariccia: the Chigi Palace and
the adjoining church, the monumental access bridge.
The Chigi Palace was built between
1664 and 1672 by the Chigi family, which was at the height of its power thanks
to the pontificate of Alexander VII (1655 - 1667). Carlo Fontana was the
architect who supervised the transformation of an earlier fortress, based on a project
by Giovan Lorenzo Bernini, who also designed the Maria Assunta Church opposite.
The small town, which stands on a
hilltop, is surrounded by deep ravines, which explains the construction in the
mid-19th century of the monumental access bridge one can see on the left.
This view taken from below shows
the city in a backlight which the artist has rendered with great economy of
means. The city stands out against a bluish sky suggested by a thin highlight
of gouache. Only the shadows are drawn with a grey wash, while the rest of the
ochre-coloured paper remains unpainted.
3.
Related artworks
While some older drawings demonstrate
that Bénouville visited Ariccia well before 1851, it seems to us that our
drawing can be regarded as a preparatory drawing, probably executed in the open
air, for the much more accomplished drawing from the Metropolitan Museum in New
York. The latter was done in brown ink wash with watercolour highlights and
bears the signature "Ach. Bénouville Roma 53", which clearly indicates
that it was made at a later stage in the artist's Roman studio.
4.
Ariccia, an artists' colony at the gates of Rome
The fame of Ariccia in the
Romantic period was largely based on the attractiveness of the Locanda
Martorelli, the inn located in the square in front of the palace, which was a
popular stop on the road to Naples during the Grand Tour. This inn later became
a holiday resort attracting the entire Romantic generation, both writers and
painters. Artists as diverse as J.M. William Turner (1775 - 1851),
Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796 - 1875) and Henrik Ibsen (1826 - 1906), who wrote his
play Brand here in 1865, stayed there.
It is interesting in this respect
to compare this drawing to the view of Ariccia painted in 1826-1827 by
Jean-Baptiste Corot (with whom Bénouville shared a studio in Rome in 1843). In
this painting Corot presents a viewpoint quite similar to that of our drawing, also
in a backlight, at a time when the monumental access bridge had not yet been
built.
5.
Framing
The drawing has been given new
margins and is presented in a 19th century natural wood frame with light
fillets. The blue of the marie-louise has been chosen to match the thin gouache
highlights of the sky.