A pair of trompe l'œil wall panels
Oil on canvas, the edges partially relined. Both designed to resemble moulded panels with central trompe l'œil marble tondos painted en grisaille to depict amoretti at play surrounded by metal tendrils and garlands with rocaille scrolls, flowers and bouquets. With minor retouches. H 250, W 174 and 173.5 cm.
Attributed to Piat Joseph Sauvage, 1780s.
In these two large-format panels, designed for a feudal interior, the artist has created his own interior architecture, the ambiguity of which is playfully underlined by the small, realistically painted butterfly on one of the panels. The paintings are attributed to Piat Sauvage (1744 – 1818), an artist born in Tournai in the southern Netherlands (now Belgium). He worked in his father's glass cutting studio until the age of 17, after which, in accordance with his talents, he was allowed to attend the Academy in Antwerp. In Brussels he carried out commissions for the governor of the southern Netherlands, after which he enrolled at the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris. In 1774, the year of the coronation of the French King Louis XVI, he attracted attention with a series of nine trompe l'œil grisaille reliefs. He was engaged by the royal court and went on to paint wall decorations for the Prince de Condé, eventually receiving commissions for the castles of Saint-Cloud and Fontainebleau. Many of his works can today be found in stately English homes managed by the National Trust and in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (acc. no. 9120-1863 and E.1098-1911).
Literature
Cf. the trompe l'œil wall paintings by Piat Sauvage in the Château de Compiègne, in: Louis XVI et Marie Antoinette à Compiègne, Musée national du château de Compiègne, 25.10.2006 - 29.1.2007, Paris 2006, illus. 51. There is a similar example of a tondo in grisaille technique with amoretti at play. Cf. also Ebeling/Leben (ed.), Le style Empire: L'hôtel de Beauharnais à Paris. La résidence de l'ambassadeur d'Allemagne, Paris 2016, for the wall panelling designed by Piat Sauvage. Cf. also an overdoor with a Neoclassical sacrificial scene by Piat Joseph Sauvage, auctioned at Lempertz Cologne, auction 1096 on 17 November 2017, lot 1254.