Antique Master Print-RUSTIC RIVER SCENE-BOATS-FIGURES-Legros-Le May-c.1775-1825

Medium: Etching on hand laid (verge) paper.

Sheet size: 13.5 x 17 cm (5.31 x 6.69 inch). Image size: 13.5 x 17 cm. (5.31 x 6.69 inch).

Condition: very good, given age. Crisp lines, minimal handling wear, light toning. Remains of paper on rear from atttachment. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling. Please study scan carefully.

LANDSCAPE, RIVER, BOATS, FIGURES, RUSTIC, TREES

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Source: unknown, to be determined.

State: .

Provenance: Doublette der Albertina.

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Biography engraver: Sauveur Legros (1754-1834) was a French poet, writer, painter, watercolourist, draughtsman and engraver who worked in the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium). Sauveur Legros was born in Versailles in 1754. Orphaned, he left for Brussels in 1773, where he became the secretary of Prince Charles-Joseph de Ligne. He accompanied his master on his many trips, including Russia and the Crimea (in 1787), Paris (1789) and Vienna (1790). He is best known as a writer and poet. He was a pupil of the Abb? Delille in Paris. He was probably a pupil of Antoine Cardon (in Brussels) and Adam von Bartsch (in Vienna), with whom he collaborated. He is said to have been the teacher of Fran?ois Maleck de Werthenfels (1793-1849).

Biography artist: Olivier Le May (1734-1797) was a French painter and engraver. He was born in the parish of Saint-Nicolas in Valenciennes and trained at the Academie de Valenciennes.Around 1754, he left his home town for Paris. He was a friend of Louis Joseph Watteau (1731-1798), who introduced him to the sculptor Jacques Saly (1717-1776), also from Valenciennes and a man devoted to helping people from the town. Saly in turn recommended him to Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740-1812), with whom Le May became friends early in 1755. He was also inspired by Dutch masters such as Nicolaes Berchem (1628-1683) and Karel Dujardin (1622-1678), whose works he studied during his free time in the galleries of Paris.According to ?douard Fromentin he travelled to Italy around 1770. He contributed illustrations to Voyage pittoresque de la France by Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, with his works engraved in 1784 by Fran?ois Denis N?e (1732-1817). He travelled much on the coast of the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic and went to America twice. He also set off from Bordeaux for Saint-Domingue in July 1787 – there he filled a 70-page album with pencil, pen and ink drawings. He also travelled to Ostend, the Rhine Valley, northern Italy, the towns around Bergamo, Verona and Vicenza. He offered two paintings to his home town to mark his reception into the Acad?mie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1785. He spent several periods in Brussels before returning to France at the end of his life, dying in Paris.