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View of Church Interior
Charles Michel Ange Challe1742–46
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York, United States
Depiction of a church interior. The view shown from an oblique angle, depicts a vast, vaulted hall that leads into another, colonnaded hall. A sepulchral monument is positioned above the arched opening (at the transition to the next hall). Numerous sculptures and monuments are positioned in wall niches in the main hall. Three small figures and a dog are standing at center. Additional groups of people are visible in the distance.
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Details
- Title: View of Church Interior
- Creator: Charles Michel-Ange Challe
- Creator Lifespan: 1718/1778
- Date Created: 1742–46
- Type: Drawing
- Rights: Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council
- Medium: Pen and brown and gray ink, brush and wash, watercolor, black chalk on paper, lined with various sheets of paper with printed text in French
- Viewing Notes: The influence of Piranesi is evident in this architectural fantasy by Challe, a French artist originally trained as an architect. The tiny figures function as surrogate tourists admiring the sepulcher at the right. The interior, possibly modeled on Roman baths, is adorned with swags, figures, and the architectural orders associated with ancient Rome.
- Signed: Signed at lower left in brown ink (illegible)
- Provenance: Leon Decloux
- Paper Support: Paper, lined with various sheets of paper with printed text in French
- Inscribed: Inscribed in pen and black ink at lower right: ROME
- Exhibitions: CHNDM - Excavating the Vocabulary of Design: 18th Century Drawings and Prints from the Permanent Collection. [Ground floor gallery], November 4, 2005 - January 8, 2008.Crosscurrents: French and Italian Neoclassical drawings and prints from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design. Washington: Published for Cooper-Hewitt Museum by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978. [see Related Exhibitions] The Academy of Europe - Rome in the 18th Century. Storrs, Conn.: William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 1973. (10/13-11/19/1973)
- Dimensions: 16.9 x 39.4 cm (6 5/8 x 15 1/2 in.)
- Bibliography: Crosscurrents: French and Italian Neoclassical drawings and prints from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design. Washington: Published for Cooper-Hewitt Museum by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978, no. 31, p. 45, repr. The Academy of Europe - Rome in the 18th Century. Storrs, Conn.: William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 1973, no. 89.
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