View Of The Castle And Town Of Blainville (seine-maritime), Pen And Watercolor. [19th Century].

Pen and watercolor. 42.5 x 62.6 cm. Paper slightly browned. Small tear to left of top edge, without damage to drawing.

Signed lower left: "ABC". Title at top in drapery, with on either side the coat of arms of the ancient de Blainville family and that of Jean-Jules Armand Colbert, to whom the Marquisate of Blainville belonged in 1696: "Veue du Chasteau et du bourg de Blainville, Marquisat en Normandie a quatre lieues de Roüen dans le Vexin Normand, 1696".

This drawing is a 19th-century copy of a late 17th-century drawing by Louis Boudan, depicting the market town of Blainville (now Blainville-Crevon, northeast of Rouen), with the canonical church of La Trinité and the parish church of Saint-Pierre, and above it the large medieval château, now in ruins. The original drawing is part of an album of drawings by Louis Boudan on Normandy, from the exceptional collection of the antiquarian François-Roger de Gaignières (1642-1715), and is kept in the Department of Prints and Photography at the BnF (Inv. VA-76).

Ref. X-1916