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Figures near a Ruined Colonnade
Charles-Louis Clérisseau1761
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York, United States
A ruined colonnade curves from left foreground to lower right. At the center of the composition a sarcophagus decorated with a cow skull serves as a resting place for a group of travelers. At lower right, an additional group of figures has been added with light pen strokes.
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Details
- Title: Figures near a Ruined Colonnade
- Creator: Charles-Louis Clérisseau
- Creator Lifespan: 1721/1820
- Date Created: 1761
- Type: Drawing
- Rights: Gift of Mrs. Howard J. Sachs and Mr. Peter G. Sachs in memory of Miss Edith L. Sachs
- Medium: Pen and black ink, brush and brown and gray wash, white gouache on off-white laid paper
- Viewing Notes: Like his countryman Legeay, Clérisseau was trained as an architect, but no evidence suggests that he ever received a commission. He is best known for painterly depictions of fantastic ruins, evocative of a romantic classical past. He was a great friend and teacher to Robert Adam who studied classical design motifs and landscape compositions from him. In 1764 they collaborated on a book "The ruins of Spalatro", the results of their Italian tour of 1757.
- Signed: Lower right in pen and brown ink: Clerisseau fe/1761
- Paper Support: Off-white laid paper
- 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.Cologne, Germany - Wallraf-Richartz Museum: Idee und Anspruch der Architektur, December 13, 1979-January 27, 1980.
- Dimensions: 32.5 x 27.5 cm (12 13/16 x 10 13/16 in.)
- Bibliography: Dee, Elaine Evans. exh.cat. "Idee und Anspruch der Architektur" (Cologne: Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 1979) #45 (Illus.)MacDonald, William L. "Columns in the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Musuem. (New York, Smithsonian Institution, 1982) 16.
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