Benjamin Samuel Bolomey (1739–1819) – Portrait Of A Man – Pastel On Vellum – Louis XV Period

Benjamin Samuel BOLOMEY (1739–1819)
Swiss painter and pastel artist
Portrait of a Man
Pastel on vellum stretched on a stretcher
Louis XV period
Probably The Hague, circa 1765
Unsigned, attributed to Bolomey by Neil Jeffares
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42 x 33 cm [image]
47 x 38 cm [frame]
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Benjamin Samuel Bolomey, born in Lutry in April 1739, arrived in Paris very early, as early as 1751. There he became the student and protégé of the painter and professor at the Royal Academy, Joseph Marie Vien (1716–1809); as early as October 1758, he was listed as a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.
In 1762, he left for the Netherlands, first to Amsterdam and then to The Hague, where he was summoned by the Prince of Weilburg to draw up architectural plans and fortifications. Since he disliked this work, he resigned and devoted himself to painting, particularly portraiture, an “inferior genre but a more lucrative one.”
In May 1791, he returned to Switzerland, to Lausanne, where he died on December 19, 1819.
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Bibliography
Collectif, Benjamin Samuel Bolomey 1739-1819 – Un peintre suisse à la Cour du Prince Guillaume V d'Orange, 2001