Drawing By Jean Chaufourier. View Of The Castle And Gardens Of Bagnolet (seine-saint-denis).

Pen and watercolor. 36 x 59.5 cm (the two side margins have been redone), in a modern frame of 56 x 81 cm. Paper and drawing worn in places. Restorations. Title at the top of the drawing: "View of the Chateau and gardens of Bagnolet belonging to her Royal Highness Madame the Dowager Duchess of Orleans". The words "Chateau", "her Royal Highness" and "the Duchess of Orleans" appear to have been scratched out and rewritten (restorations). Signed below the drawing, on the right: "[D]essigned [by] his very humble and very obedient servant Chaufourier[r]". Jean Chaufourier (1679-1757) was a painter and engraver, a member of the Royal Academy of Painting from 1735. He notably held the title of draughtsman to the king and was the drawing teacher of Pierre-Jean Mariette. (Cf. Bénézit, II, 463). The Department of Graphic Arts at the Louvre Museum holds several drawings by Chaufourier. The Château de Bagnolet was built in its first form at the beginning of the 17th century. It was purchased in 1719 by the Duchess of Orléans, Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, wife of Philippe d'Orléans, regent during the minority of Louis XV from 1715 to 1723. The Duchess had the château enlarged and embellished and had a large park laid out. The Château de Bagnolet was destroyed before the end of the 18th century. Its representations are rare. A view of the château from the garden side was drawn and engraved by Jacques Rigaud around 1730. The Château de Bagnolet was located in the current commune of Bagnolet (Seine-Saint-Denis) and its park straddled Bagnolet and the Charonne district (now the 20th arrondissement of Paris). The current Rue des Orteaux was built at the request of the Duchess of Orléans to connect her château to Paris. Ref. A11-40