Victor-jean Nicolle (1754-1826) Rome, The Lively Place Du Panthéon - Piazza Del Rotonda

Victor-Jean NICOLLE
(Paris, 1754 - Paris, 1826)
Rome, the lively Place du Panthéon (Piazza del Rotonda)
Watercolor and gouache
H. 39 cm; W. 60 cm
Signed lower center, at the foot of the fountain
Circa 1790

Provenance :
- Sale of April 7, 1995, Tajan, Paris, Old Master Drawings, no. 106, €16,800 excluding fees
- French private collection

Nicolle began his training around the age of 15 at the Royal Free School of Drawing, founded in 1766 by Jean-Jacques Bachelier, and won the grand prize for perspective in 1771. From then on, he studied for several years in Paris in the studio of the architect Louis-François Petit-Radel (1739-1818), who directed, for example, the creation of the Palais Bourbon. He then went into exile in Italy thanks to the support of Louis XVI, who had sent him there with fifteen other artists to create near-photographic views of all the sites and buildings "worthy of interest." He spent most of his time in Rome, but also visited Venice, Verona, Florence, Bologna, and Naples. He is considered to have made two extended stays in Italy, from 1787 to 1798, and then from 1806 to 1810/11. In the meantime, Nicolle produced views of Paris, and, commissioned by Napoleon as a gift for Marie-Louise in 1811, a series of fifty views of Malmaison. His depictions of southern France are also known, particularly Nîmes, Orange, and Avignon, and even Valençay in Touraine. He put his meticulous and extremely precise technique at the service of his topographical skills and his sense of the picturesque, thus producing works that are both charming and of genuine documentary interest. While enjoying great success at the time among art and vedute enthusiasts, Nicolle never exhibited at the Salon. Nicolle's output is so considerable that one might assume he had some kind of studio, which explains some works of slightly average quality. While the bulk of his work consists of small-format circular watercolors (almost always 7 cm in diameter), it is exceptional to find drawings of such a large size as ours. Bordered to the south by the church of Santa Maria Rotonda, the Pantheon square has in its center a Baroque-style fountain built in 1575, and surmounted in 1711 by a red marble obelisk dating from the reign of Ramses II. By its style and also by the clothing of the figures, the work seems to date from the artist's first stay in Rome, around 1790.