Lot 23233: SIR PETER FRANCIS BOURGEOIS (British 1756-1811)

SIR PETER FRANCIS BOURGEOIS (British 1756-1811) Conversion of St. Paul , 1794 Oil on original unlined canvas 49-1/2 x 39 inches (125.7 x 99.1 cm) Signed on verso: " Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois, R. A. pinxit 1794 " Bourgeois was elected to the Royal Academy the same year he painted the present picture. He was admitted under the presidency of Benjamin West, whose work exerted a stylistic influence upon his own. Bourgeois was born in London of Swiss descent. He was a pupil of Loutherbourg, traveled in France, Holland and Italy in 1776, and upon his return received his first recognition for landscapes with cattle and figures. In 1791 he was appointed painter to the King of Poland and knighted, and subsequently began to receive increased recognition in his own country. He became landscape painter to King George III in 1793, the year before he painted this ambitious religious subject. In his 1832 History of the Royal Academy of Arts from Its Foundation in 1768 to the Present Time , Willliam Sandby provided an extensive biography of Bourgeois, which made note of his fine collection of 350 Old Master paintings bequeathed to him by his friend Noel Desenfans. These the artist in turn bequeathed to Dulwich College, together with 12,000 pounds to build a gallery for them. The handsome result of his gift was the Dulwich Picture Gallery, designed by Sir John Soane, where the Bourgeois collection remains among the museum's most distinguished holdings.