Provenance

Jacques Bacri (1911-1965), Paris

Thence by descent (sale: Paris, Sotheby’s, 30 March 2017, lot 132,  illustrated)

W. M. Brady & Co., New York

Private collection, New York

Known primarily as a painter of landscapes, Nicolas Perignon, born in Nancy in 1726, was also active as a botanical draughtsman, engraver, architect, and lawyer.  He began his career as an architectural draughtsman, and soon showed his talents as a flower painter of exceptional sensitivity.  His usual medium was gouache, which he applied with great freshness and a certain liveliness.  He was made a member of the Academy in 1774, two years after the date of our picture, and was sought after by such collectors as the Marquise de Pompadour, who greatly appreciated him.  He died in Paris in 1782.

In 1664, Colbert, the King’s superintendent of buildings, commissioned the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, to redesign the Tuilieries Garden in much the form in which it is known today.  Le Nôtre and hundreds of masons, gardeners, and laborers, worked on the garden from 1666 until 1672.  Our drawing shows the famous octagonal lake at the western end of the garden adjacent to the Place de la Concorde.  The lake is 200 feet (60 meters) in diameter, and was designed to be viewed from the two terraces framing the western entrance of the garden, and a double horseshoe-shaped ramp, leading down from the Place de la Concorde.