Curtis_O_Baer_2010

29. Hubert-François Bourguignon, called Gravelot French, 1699 – 1773

Study for a Frontispiece 1761

Graphite 6 1 ⁄ 2 x 3 3 ⁄ 4

inches ( 16 . 5 x 9.5 cm)

provenance Marquis de Fourquevaux; Emanuel Bocher; Louis Roederer; A. S. W. Rosenbach (pur chased 1922 ); Este Gallery, New York, by 1961 ; Collection Curtis O. Baer exhibitions New York, Este Gallery, Seventh Annual Exhibition of Master Drawings from Five Centuries , 1961, no. 56 or 57 ; Atlanta, 1985 , cat. no. 64 , p. 115 The present work is a study for the frontispiece of Amusements d’un convalescent dediés à ses amis, a collection of verse and songs, with music. The frontispiece was engraved by Choffard, one of the Gravelot’s most skilled interpreters. The Baer sheet is one of three studies by Gravelot listed in the Este Gallery catalogue of 1961 —the current where abouts of the other two sheets are not known— and represents a relatively early moment in the artist’s development of the design. The apparently easy touch of Gravelot’s drawings belies an extremely protracted work ing process that involved studies of the nude figure from carefully posed mannequins, precise calculations of persepective, and the execution of different aspects of the com position in many preliminary drawings, first in dry media, before arriving at the final wash drawing from which the engraver would work. Gravelot’s preparatory drawings were almost always the same size as the engraving, with the composition reversed. The Goncourts, who considered Gravelot one of the four “petits grands maitre du genre” described the composition for Amusements d’un convalescent in their monumental l’Art du dix-huitième siècle ( 1859 – 1870 ): The pretty ‘cabinet’ of an epicurean! The bit of a fireplace! The rows of delightful books; the table with its bronze fittings; the cup of tea cooling on the mantelpiece; and the especially the charming gentleman, appearing thin

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