VICTOR JEAN NICOLLE (1754-1826)

 
 
 
A PAIR OF VIEWS OF ROMAN RUINS
Possibly based on or actually depicting 'The Academy' of Hadrian's Villa which no longer stands
 
Watercolour with pen & ink
Each 24.4 x 16.2 cm
 
 
PROVENANCE
With Galerie Cailleux, Paris & Colnaghi, New York (by 1983);
Private collection, Ireland
 
EXHIBITED
New York, Colnaghi, 18th Century French Drawings, 20 April - 26 May 1983, nos. 13 & 14
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Le Dessin en Couleurs, 5 June - 13 July 1984, nos. 45 & 46
 
 
 
 
 
 
The present pair were, when exhibited by Colnaghi and Galerie Cailleux in 1983-4, thought perhaps to depict a part of the Villa Adriana known as 'L'Accademia':
 
'It appears that this pair of watercolors, at least the drawing with the revealed arched opening, represents the part of the Villa Hadriana which was called the Academy. Even if nothing today remained of the monument, one could be sure that Nicolle drew it with accuracy, as he did hundreds of sheets...' (1)
 
 
 
Victor-Jean Nicolle trained in Paris at the École Royale Gratuite de Dessin, the free drawing school founded in in Paris by Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806). Nicolle won the Grand Prix de Perspective in 1771, and after graduating he entered the architectural studio of Louis François Petit-Radel (1739-1806), who under the First Empire became inspector general of civil buildings and built the Roule slaughterhouse, among other accomplishments. 
 
 
Nicolle’s architectural specialism and training was put to great use during his lengthy sojourns in Rome, which appear to have been between 1787-1798 and 1806-1811. Often filled with anecdotal detail, Nicolle’s drawings from his Italian period are almost all rigorously accurate in their topography. They are, as such, important documentary evidence of the appearance of the Eternal City in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Like many artists in Rome before him, Nicolle was also inspired by Hubert Robert and Piranesi's capricci, and drew a number of his own imagined landscapes, subterranean scenes and classical interiors, demonstrating an originality that comparatively few of his contemporaries could manage. Nicolle would generally make his topographical drawings 'sur le motif' in pen and ink, which he would then finish with watercolour in his studio. Best known for his Roman views, he also produced drawings of other cities in Italy, including Bologna, Venice, Verona, Naples and Florence, while in France he made numerous studies of Paris and its environs. 
 
 
Nicolle never exhibited at the Salons; however, his reputation as a topographical artist was such that  he received a commission from the Emperor Napoleon (in 1810) for fifty watercolour views of the principal monuments of Paris, intended as a wedding present for the Empress Marie-Louise. This group is now part of the Napoleonic collections at Malmaison. Other significant groups of drawings by Nicolle are today in the Louvre, the Musée Carnavalet and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, as well as the museums of Rouen and Lille.