Live Auction 7893Old Master & Early British Drawings & Watercolours
Pier Leone Ghezzi (Communanza 1674-1755 Rome)
Lot 66

Pier Leone Ghezzi (Communanza 1674-1755 Rome)

Monsieur de Fontenelle, seen from behind, and Abbé Le Blond

Closed6 December 2012

Price Realised

GBP 2,250

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Pier Leone Ghezzi (Communanza 1674-1755 Rome)
Monsieur de Fontenelle, seen from behind, and Abbé Le Blond
inscribed 'Mr De Fontenelle et Lab. Le Blond' (on the verso)
black chalk, pen and brown ink
12¾ x 8 7/8 in. (32.3 x 22.5 cm.)

Lord Braybrooke; Sotheby's, London, 10 December 1979, lot 112.

Specialist note

Monsieur de Fontenelle was identified in 1979 as almost certainly Bernard La Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), Secretary of the Académie des Sciences in Paris and author of Entretiens sur la pluralité des Mondes. His small companion, Abbé Le Blond, was First Secretary to Cardinal Polignac and appears with the cardinal in another of the Braybrooke Ghezzi drawings (1979 sale, lot 1).