Lot 9: Nicolas Delobel (Paris 1693-1763)

A view of houses and temples on a hill with pine trees, Rome
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash heightened with white on blue paper, tip of upper corners made up, on an English 18th Century mount
9 1/2 x 15 1/4 in. (241 x 387 mm.)

J. Barnard (cf. L. 1420, without paraph), his mount with inscription 'Claude =N=993 15 1/2 by 9 3/4 '

The present drawing is comparable in handling to a view by Delobel of the Monastery of San Bartolomeo at Grottaferrata just to the south east of Rome, signed and dated 1728, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (M. Roland-Michel, Le Dessin Français au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1987, no. 176, illustrated) and to another of The Tiber Island with the church of San Bartolomeo formerly with Flavia Ormond, London, 2001, no. 15.
Poerson, director of the French Academy in Rome, wrote to d'Antin, the Surintendant des Bâtiments, in Paris on 7 November 1724 describing Delobel's expedition to draw antique monuments: '..Les élèves de la peinture, qui ne perdent point de temps, sont allés estudier d'après nature des beaux restes de l'antiquités, à Tivoli et Frascati, avec M. Vleughels, lequel est amoureux des belles veues de ce pays; sont allés ensemble les Srs Natoire, de Lobel et Joras [Jeaurat], qui sont les élèves destinés pour la peinture' (A de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey, 'Correspondance des Directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome', Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1897, VII, p. 84).