Page 38 - Pierre Durand Collection Including Chinese Art and Porcelain Sothebys Jan 27 2022

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CHARLES FRANÇOIS GRENIER DE LACROIX, CALLED LACROIX was in Naples by 1757, where he painted the local countryside and first came
DE MARSEILLE (? C. 1700-1779 BERLIN) into contact with Mount Vesuvius, which he would often depict throughout
An Italian landscape with figures the rest of his career. By 1776, he was back in Paris and exhibited at the
Salon du Colisee. In 1780-82, he is known to have participated in the Salon
signed and dated 'G. R. De LaCroix / P. Romae . 1745 . '(lower left)
oil on canvas de la Correspondance, the only regular alternative public exhibition to the
25º x 19¿ in. (64.3 x 48.5 cm.) Salons of the official Academy, of which he was never a member.
$20,000-30,000 While living in Rome, Lacroix imitated, and sometimes copied, the seascapes
of Adrien Manglard and Vernet, while his mature manner maintained a sense
PROVENANCE:
of fantasy that is largely absent from their works. Known as ‘Della Croce’ in
with Segoura Antiques, Paris, where acquired by the present owner in 1997.
Rome, Lacroix achieved considerable commercial success, as attested to by
his large output and by the numerous engravings made after his paintings.
Charles François Lacroix was born in Marseilles, and little is known of
his early training except that he was a pupil of the celebrated marine and The present painting is among the artist’s earliest signed and dated works,
landscape painter Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), in whose studio in Rome he executed in Rome in 1745, while he was still working in the studio of Vernet,
served as an assistant in the 1740s. While his two earliest known works, and it is strongly influenced by the master’s style. Excellently preserved, it
pendant seascapes, are signed and dated 1743, there is no documentary depicts an imaginary, picturesque view of the Roman countryside that is
evidence concerning him until 1754, when he registered as living in Rome. He
clearly inspired by the landscape in the immediate environs of Tivoli.