Thursday, June 9, 2016

Jean Grandjean in Rome, 1779-1781

Jean Grandjean
View of Rome from the Capitoline Hill
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean was a Dutch artist descended from French Huguenot refugees, one of six children born to an Amsterdam glove-maker. This son showed an early gift, producing drawings that the father exhibited in his shop windows. There is evidence that young Jean Grandjean apprenticed with an enameler and a wallpaper-supplier while also finding instruction with local artists. Impressed by his natural abilities and hard work, two cultivated amateurs of the arts arranged for him to travel to Rome in 1779. All the drawings shown here were made by Grandjean in Rome between the summer of his arrival and his sudden death two years later at the age of 29.  

attributed to Jean Grandjean
Baths of Caracalla
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Colosseum
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Colosseum
1781
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Colosseum vaulting
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Grandjean made several beautifully-finished drawings of antique statues on public display in the Rome of the 1770s and 80s. Many of those represented below could then be found either in the Capitoline Museum or at the Villa Borghese. Only a couple of decades after Grandjean drew them in Rome, the Borghese marbles would be permanently removed to Paris by Napoleon.

Jean Grandjean
Capitoline Antinous
shown with Danish scholar Andreas Christian Hviid
1780
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Capitoline Antinous
part of Cardinal Albani's collection, bought for the Museum by Pope Clement XII
1781
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Borghese Gladiator
often depicted, but rarely depicted frontally and foreshortened
1779
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Cupid and Psyche - Capitoline Museum
crowd favorite of the 18th century, now less admired
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Cupid bending bow - Capitoline Museum
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Borghese Faun, or, Faun with Pipes
now at the Louvre
1780
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Ludovisi Mars
then in the Ludovisi collection, now at Museo Nazionale Romano
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Statue of Pollux from Castor and Pollux group
then owned by Queen Christina of Sweden (in Rome), now at the Prado
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

Jean Grandjean
Antique statues of putti
ca. 1779-81
drawing
Rijksmuseum

I am grateful to the Rijksmuseum for making these excellent reproductions available.