Lot 138: CHARLES MICHEL-ANGE CHALLE

CHARLES MICHEL-ANGE CHALLE PARIS 1718 - 1778 A CAPRICCIO TEMPLE INTERIOR Pen and brown ink and wash 208 by 275 mm

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, European Master Drawings Unveiled, 2002, cat. no. 122

P. Fuhring, Design into Art: Drawings for Architecture and Ornament, The Lodewijk Houthakker Collection, London 1989, p. 492, cat. no. 771, reproduced

Lodewijk Houthakker (bears his mark, not in Lugt)

Challe won the Prix de Rome for painting in 1741 and travelled to Italy the following year, where he remained until 1749. His time as a student at the French Academy in Rome instilled in him a great admiration for Imperial Rome, but he was also profoundly influenced by his contemporary Piranesi. The influence of the latter is evident in the present sheet, with its depiction of a fantastical, boundless classical interior.

Peter Fuhring, in his entry for this drawing in the Houthakker catalogue, notes that the low position of the vanishing point is unusual for Challe, but makes the design suitable for a stage set.