Jean-Baptiste Pillement
Lyon 1727-Lyon 1808
A Pair of Landscapes with Drovers, Cattle and Sheep
SOLD

Both signed and inscribed 'J Pillement' 'fait Basle 1781' (bottom right and left corners) Black chalk, pen and brown ink framing lines, watermarks: Strasburg lily and C & J HONIG, and C & J HONIG

230 x 306 mm (9 x 12 in.)

Jean-Baptiste Pillement travelled extensively in his lifetime. He went to Madrid in 1745 at the age of seventeen and on to London in 1750s. The 1760s saw him in Paris, Vienna and Warsaw-where he worked for King Stanislaus III Augustus. In the 1770s he was back in London. He was in Portugal between 1780-6, though must have been in Basle in 1781, since our drawings are dated as such. Between 1786-9 he was in Spain. He returned to Lyons during his last years and died in poverty, a victim of the decline of the French rococo.

These fresh and lively chalk drawings reflect Pillements skill in media other than oils, and epitomise his mastery of a pastoral capriccio.