The Artist: Antoine-Félix Boisselier produced this sketch in Italy, where he had accompanied his brother Félix Boisselier, or Boisselier the Elder (1776–1811), after the latter won the Prix de Rome for history painting in 1806. Between 1807 and 1811, Antoine evidently joined Félix on sketching excursions throughout Rome and its environs, as well as to points farther south, producing highly accomplished drawings and oil studies. After his brother’s death, Boisselier studied in Paris with Jean Victor Bertin (1767–1842). He placed second, behind Achille-Etna Michallon (1796–1822), in the first competition for a Prix de Rome in the category of
paysage historique (historical landscape). He would devote his career to landscape painting, exhibiting at the Paris Salon from 1817 until 1852.
The Painting: This study is the record of discovery of a slice of actual nature equal in every way to the perfected nature of the seventeenth-century masters Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Its realization embodied what a landscape artist traveled to Italy to experience. With its glorious setting in the Sabine Hills east of Rome, the medieval monastery of San Benedetto at Subiaco became a popular subject for landscape painters at the turn of the nineteenth century (see, for example, The Met,
2003.42.27,
2003.42.42,
2009.400.69). Boisselier’s approach to plein-air painting, as seen in the present work, evinces a freshness of vision marked by scrupulous attention to form and color arrived at through virtuoso brushwork, resulting in scintillating effects of atmosphere and light. Few oil sketches of this period convey an entire world so vividly. The artist’s choice of a vertical format suggests that his interest lay not only in the site’s architecture, topography, and flora, but also in the physical interaction of these elements, with rushing water transformed into vapor as it rises slowly into the clear, warm sky. A pair of figures at the bottom right animates the scene and provides a sense of scale. For a description of the artist’s procedure in painting this scene, see under Technical Notes.
It is likely that this work was included in the artist’s posthumous studio sale, held at the Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, on November 20 and 21, 1857, under lot number 123, described as “environ cent cinquante études de paysages, études faites d’après nature, sites italiens et français” (about one hundred fifty landscape studies, studies after nature, Italian and French sites). Comparable plein-air sketches by Boisselier executed during the same period as the present work include
Lake Nemi (Phillips Collection, Washington),
Temple of Vesta at Tivoli (Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University), and
View of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers). It is tempting to consider the ways in which these works may reflect interaction with the leading French landscape painters Didier Boguet (1755–1839), Pierre Anasthase Chauvin (1774–1832), and François-Marius Granet (1775–1849), as there can be little doubt that Boisselier encountered them as part of the small but vibrant community of expatriate artists around the French Academy in Rome.
Asher Miller 2019
