PIERRE-NICOLAS LEGRAND DE LÉRANT (1758-1829)

ACADEMIC STUDY OF A MALE NUDE
Trois crayons on buff paper
57 x 42 cm
 
 
 
 
 
Pierre-Nicolas Sicot, called ‘Legrand de Lérant’, was born in Pont-l’Évêque, was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Descamps at the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Rouen. He displayed considerable talent from an early age, winning the second prize at the École for drawing at just 15. After completing his studies in Rouen, he enrolled at Paris’ École Nationale (which later became the Academie). 
 
 
The artist travelled to Bern in c.1794 to flee the Revolution (the present sheet comes from a Swiss collection). Here he worked for local dignitaries, specialising in family portraits, and produced illustrations for the Swiss-Dutch writer Isabelle de Charrière, a prominent writer of the late Enlightenment. He gained some fame in his home country by exhibiting his Portrait of Cange, a prison commissioner, at the 1796 Salon in Paris. The painting became a symbol of the few instances of empathy shown during the Revolution.