Live Auction 22980Philip Hewat-Jaboor: An Eye for the Magnificent
CHARLES PERCIER (PARIS 1764-1838)
Lot 165

CHARLES PERCIER (PARIS 1764-1838)

Design for the Stage: A wooded Garden with the Temple of Venus, for André Ernest Modeste Grétry's Anacréon Chez Polycrate

Closed8 February 2024

Price Realised

GBP 8,820

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CHARLES PERCIER (PARIS 1764-1838)
Design for the Stage: A wooded Garden with the Temple of Venus, for André Ernest Modeste Grétry's Anacréon Chez Polycrate
inscribed 'porphire' (lower right) and further inscribed and dated 'approuvé pour être Executé/ tel qu'il est du coté droit/ Paris 13 xbre 1792/ Cellerier [?]' (verso)
pencil, pen and black ink and watercolour, heightened with white on paper
15 x 24 ¾ in. (38.1 x 62.3 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 3 July 1990, lot 169.
Anonymous sale; Galerie Koller, Zurich, 2 November 1995, lot N210A.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 21 November 1996, lot 21.
with Charles Plante Fine Art, Washington D.C, until January 1997, where purchased by Philip Hewat-Jaboor.

Specialist note

In 1792, not long after his return from Rome, Percier was appointed directeur de décor of the Opéra de Paris. The director of the Opera in 1792-3 was the architect Jacques Cellerier, a former pupil of Blondel and Leroy, whose acceptance of the design is recorded in the inscription. Percier's extensive knowledge of classical antiquities is echoed in the frieze, the candelabra and other details of this drawing. This is one of his few known stage designs immediately preceding his long association with Fontaine from 1794.