Lot 179: Blanchet (Louis Gabriel, 1705-1772). Head of a

Blanchet (Louis Gabriel, 1705-1772). Head of a bearded man looking upwards, black and white chalk on blue-grey paper, of an elderly man in clerical garb gazing aloft, signed lower left, 30 x 26cm (11.75 x 10.25ins), tipped onto paper, together with three other black and white chalk drawings on blue or grey paper, figure studies (a full-length draped figure walking; a seated robed figure; head of a young woman in profile), similarly sized and mounted on paper. Blanchet was a French painter, active in Rome. He won second place in the Prix de Rome competition in 1727 and thereafter settled in Rome, where he enjoyed the patronage of Nicolas Vleughels, Director of the Academie de France, and the Duc de Saint-Aignan, French Ambassador to the Holy See. In 1752 Blanchet painted the 'Vision of Constantine' (Paris, Louvre), a copy of Giulio Romano's fresco in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican. He was, however, principally a portrait painter and his work has been compared with that of his Roman contemporary, the renowned portraitist Pompeo Batoni, plus Northern School. Head and shoulders portrait of a bearded man, red chalk on paper, with initials PA and date 1657 to right-hand margin, blue paper adhered to corners, together with a similar red chalk drawing on the verso, a profile portrait of a bearded man looking downwards, with additional study of his nose and lips, also dated 1657, 24.5 x 19cm (9.5 x 7.5ins) (5)
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