Lot 374: Gilles-Marie Oppenord (Paris 1672-1742)

Gilles-Marie Oppenord (Paris 1672-1742)
The river god Ganges, from Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in the Piazza Navona, Rome
with inscription 'G.M. Oppenord. 1672-1742 Paris.'
black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey and brown wash, watermark encircled cannon, unframed
22 5/8 x 15½ in. (53 x 39.4 cm.)

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In 1692, at the age of twenty, Oppenord was given the opportunity to move to Rome, where he remained for eight years as a royal pensioner. During this time he studied, not the ruins and antiquities of the classical world, but the works of Roman Baroque architects and sculptors, particularly those of Bernini and Borromini. Their elegant forms inspired his own architectural designs, which were some of the earliest expressions of what was to become the Rococo style in France.