The Temple of Love, c. 1777-84 Hinterding, Erik
The Rijksmuseum bulletin,
01/2017, Letnik:
65, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
As part of a series of articles offering information on prints and drawings acquired by the Rijks Museum, this etching and aquatint is discussed. Aside from making prints, Louis-Jean Desprez had also ...trained as an architect and over the course of time acquire a thorough knowledge of classical monuments. He also built up a reputation as a very gifted designer of stage scenery. It was for this reason that in 1784, while he was working in Rome, King Gustav III of Sweden summoned him to Stockholm to provide the sets for the royal theatre. Desprez never left Sweden and in his time there made countless designs for scenery and costumes, and was also responsible for the decoration of court banquets and other important events. It would therefore seem logical to place the undated Temple of Love in Desprez’s Swedish period, but this is probably incorrect.
As part of a series of articles offering information on prints and drawings acquired by the Rijks Museum, this etching, watercolor and gouache by Louis-Jean Desprez and Francesco Piranesi is ...discussed. In 1776 the French architect, art teacher and printmaker Louis-Jean Desprez won the Prix de Rome, which enabled him to stay in the Eternal City for some years. On his arrival, he began work as a draughtsman of antiquities for the de-luxe publication Voyage Pittoresque, ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile, supervised by fellow Frenchman the Abbe de Saint-Non. This experience proved invaluable when, in 1781, he and Francesco Piranesi, the son of the great visionary, began making ‘dessins colories’ of ancient monuments and interesting places. The prospectus tells us that in 1783 this impressive View of the Palace of the Villa D’Este had yet to be published. It would have been executed before Desprez left for Stockholm in 1784 and was the tenth work in the series and the last that was actually completed.
