Umbrella Pine Trees
Louis Gabriel Blanchet (1705 - 1772)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
Unknown
Materials
Black chalk heightened with white on grey [faded from blue] paper
Measurements
515 x 362 mm
Place of origin
Rome
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 267143
Summary
Black chalk drawing heightened with white on grey [faded from blue] paper, Umbrella Pine Trees by Louis Gabriel Blanchet (1705-1772). Inscribed in pen and ink bottom centre towards right: no nuove [i.e. nove/nine]. A view of stone (or umbrella) pine trees, probably in Rome. A portrait painter from Paris, in 1727 Louis-Gabriel Blanchet won the Prix de Rome (an arts scholarship awarded by the French Academy) and thereafter worked in Rome. A rival of Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787), he portrayed many of the leading social and political figures of the day, many of them members of the Jacobite circle in Rome. This and the four other Blanchet drawings acquired by Sir Brinsley Ford have a loose, spontaneous quality and were probably once part of a larger sketchbook. The present sheet and NT 267139 are inscribed with numbers (foliation) to designate their original position within the sketchbook.
Provenance
Sotheby's 22 November, 1954; Colnaghi's from whom purchased by Brinsley Ford, 15 January for £25 (with four others) and by descent to Augustine Ford. Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Augustine Ford and allocated to the National Trust for Osterley, 2023.
Marks and inscriptions
Bottom centre towards right: no nuove [i.e. nove/nine]
Makers and roles
Louis Gabriel Blanchet (1705 - 1772) , artist
References
Ford 1998 Brinsley Ford, John Ingamells, Francis Russell, John Christian, Nicholas Penny, Jennifer Montagu, Howard Coutts, Timothy Wilson & Dudley Dodd, The Ford Collection – II, Walpole Society, Vol. 60, 1998, pp. 91-376, RBF158 Garnett 2015: Oliver Garnett, At Home with Art Treasures from the Ford Collection at Basildon Park, National Trust, 2015, pp. 16-17