VICTOR JEAN NICOLLE

(Paris, 1754 - 1826) View of St. Mark's Square with the church of the same name, the Palazzetto di San Marco and the beginning of the works designed by Valadier View of the Foro Boario with the temples Hercules victor and Portunus Pencil and watercolor on paper, 19X30.5 cm (2) Provenance: London, Sotheby's, July 6, 1992, lot 109 (as Victor Jean Nicolle) Trained at the Academy of Drawing in Paris, Nicolle won the prize for perspective in 1771, and his early fame is documented by Louis XVI's willingness to send him to Italy with the task of drawing the main views of the peninsula, staying in Venice, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Rome. Needless to remark that the largest number of these works are dedicated to the Eternal City, where Nicolle lived from 1787 to 1789 and later from 1806 to 1811. The precision of his views is certainly worthy of the best tradition, not only for their quality but also for their descriptive and topographical accuracy, combined with a peculiar atmospheric sensitivity. We can verify these aspects in the second sheet depicting the Foro Boario with the temples of Hercules the victor in the foreground and Portunus, transformed into a church and named after St. Mary the Egyptian, whose point of view is similar to that employed by Francis Town in a watercolor made in 1781 now in the British Museum. The view of St. Mark's Square, on the other hand, documents the beginning of work in 1806 on the renovation planned by architect Giuseppe Valadier, which included the demolition of the Palazzetto, later averted thanks to the intervention of Antonio Canova, who had established his Academy of Fine Arts of the Kingdom of Italy in the building.