Lot 94: Pietro Giacomo Palmieri , Bologna 1737 - 1804 Turin coastal scene with peasants, cattle and a distant castle Red chalk

Red chalk

measurements note 458 by 609mm

Gainesville, et. al., 1991-93, no. 37

Sale, London, Christie's, 5 July 1983, lot 239 (as French School, circa 1700);
with Paul Weis, New York; acquired 1990

Palmieri was born in Bologna, where he studied with Ercole Graziani. After living in Paris for eight years (1771-79), he moved to Turin, where he worked for the Savoy court as an advisor for the royal collection of prints and drawings. He also produced trompe l'oeil drawings which are very witty and accomplished compositions consisting of assemblages of prints.υ1 Palmieri was also known for his landscapes. Like this one, they generally reveal a strong debt to seventeenth-century Dutch art but are also reminiscent of contemporary French works. A group of his landscapes were engraved and published as Il Libro dei paessaggi in 1760. 1. Da Leonardo a Rembrandt, Disegni della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, exhibition catalogue, Turin 1990, no. 127, reproduced