Vue de Paris. No. 1. Vue prise du Pont Neuf, représentant le Pont des Arts

Book Description

[Paris: Esnault, c. 1810]. Hand-coloured aquatint on laid paper, engraved by Monsaldi after Garbizza. Very good condition apart from some light soiling and a few small losses along the edges of the sheet. Slight discolouration of the paper due to age. 14 5/8 x 18 1/4 inches. 16 x 20 1/8 inches. This beautifully coloured, picturesque plate of the famous Parisian bridge connecting the Louvre to the French Academy most likely comes from 'Vues des plus beaux edifices publics et particuliers de la ville de Paris', Jean-François Janinet's detailed visual architectural survey of Paris. The brainchild of Janinet, one the most accomplished French engravers of the 18th century who revolutionized the multiple-plate colour printing process, Vues des plus beaux edifices began as a succession of advertisements published in the Mercure de France and Gazette de France beginning in 1782. Although initially intended as a small portfolio of intaglio prints, the range of the project expanded when Janinet replaced his original collaborator, the topographical artist Pierre-Antoine Demachy, with the eminent architectural theorist Jean Nicolas Louis Durand in 1785. The plates of Vues were first published as a series between 1785 and 1788 and were so successful, that similar publications were issued in emulation. Esnault issued several successive and expanded editions of this great work, including an 1810 edition from which this charming print comes. Angelo Garbizza contributed several drawings of Paris to this edition of Vues. Antoine Maxime Monsaldi, a pupil of Jean-Français Pierre Peyron at the Royal Academy of Art and Science in Toulouse, was one of several artists including J.B. Chapuy and Janinet who engraved the drawings for this ambitious publication. Cf. Thieme/Becker, Allgemeines Lexicon der bilden Künstler, vol. 25/26, p. 73 & vol. 13/14, p. 171; cf. Regency to Empire: French Printmaking 1715-1814, p. 351.

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