44 - Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre (1713/14–1789)

Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre (1713/14–1789) Chinese Masquerade Held in Rome During Carnival in the Year M.D.CC.XXXV by the King of France’s Scholars at his Academy of Arts... 1735. Etching. 425 x 307 mm. Baudicour 27; see Carlson et al., *Regency to Empire: French Printmaking 1715–1814*, The Baltimore Museum of Art and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1984, no. 21. A very fine print on laid paper with a watermark (a fleur-de-lis in a circle), from the first state (of 2), with fine scratches visible in the right-hand windows of the building in the background (later erased, leaving visible white lines—as in the print held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington), trimmed to the block edge. From the collection of A. P. F. Robert-Dumesnil (Lugt 2200). AABM stamp (Lugt 3075). This print, one of about forty engraved by the artist, is among his most accomplished. It immortalizes an event that took place shortly before his arrival in Rome: the participation of French students in the Carnival festivities, the period preceding Lent. Combining splendor and whimsy, the students had dressed up as Chinese dignitaries to take part in the procession along the Corso, passing in front of the Palazzo Mancini, the seat of the French Academy in Rome. Their costumes reflect the era’s taste for chinoiserie. Pierre was certainly inspired by drawings and accounts of these festivities that reached him. He resided at the French Academy in Rome as a royal scholar from 1735 to 1740. Upon his return to Paris in 1742, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting as a history painter.