The Boejat legacy in Nantes (1): 17th-century landscapes and still lifes

13/9/23 - Acquisitions - Nantes, Musée d’Arts - As we wrote earlier (see news item of 5/9/23), the Boejat bequest to the Musée d’Arts d’Nantes comprises three main groups. We will begin with two news items about 17th-century and 18th-century French painting, starting with landscapes and a still life, without returning to the painting by Pierre-Antoine Demachy (ill. 1), already mentioned in our previous article.

: 1. Pierre-Antoine Demachy (1723-1807)
Démolition de l’église des Saints-Innocents, 1787
Huile sur panneau - 49,2 x 63,2 cm
Nantes, Musée d’Arts
Photo : Musée d’Arts de Nantes; See the image in its page

Two paintings by Hubert Robert, both bought at auction at Artcurial, have thus opportunely enriched the collections of the Musée de Nantes with works by an artist of whom it previously owned no paintings.

: 2. Hubert Robert (1733-1808)
Rocky Landscape with an Aqueduct
Oil on canvas - 48 x 38 cm
Nantes, Museum of Art
Photo: Artcurial; See the image in its page

They had been acquired in the same sale on 13 April 2013. The first (ill. 2) depicts a Rocky Landscape with Aqueduct. As is often the case with him, the landscape does not correspond to any actual site, but rather here to a mixture of memories of the south of France (the Pont du Gard in particular) and Italy (Tivoli). The vaporous nature of the composition would seem to allow us to compare this work to the art of Fragonard, to whom Hubert Robert was close. We have not yet seen any of the works in the collection other than in photographs, but this one is undoubtedly one of the most attractive.

: 3. Hubert Robert (1733-1808)
Woman at a Fountain in a Farmyard
Oil on panel - 24.5 x 33 cm
Nantes, Museum of Art
Photo: Artcurial; See the image in its page

The second painting (ill. 3) depicts a farmyard in the Roman countryside. But Antiquity is not far away: a statue and reliefs on the ground attest to the prestigious past of this place, probably a…

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