LOUIS-FRANCOIS CASSAS (Azay-Le-Ferron 1756-1827 Versailles)

This work from Cassas’s early years is dated April 1777, shortly before Cassas left the Académie Royale to go on his Grand Tour in the company of the Duc de Chabot in 1779 (see A. Gilet et al., Louis-François Cassas, 1756-1827. Dessinateur – voyageur. Im Banne der Sphinx. Ein französischer Zeichner reist nach Italien in den Orient, exhib. cat., Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, and Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 1994-1995, p. 10). As in many of his later works, often directly inspired by his travels to Italy, Greece and the Middle East, Cassas created a capriccio animated by figures admiring the monumental architecture of his own invention.