Louis-Jean Desprez

The sheet is inserted in its original 18th century decorative border. There is some light foxing to the border however the drawing itself remains in fine condition, with the watercolor still reasonably strong throughout.
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On winning the Prix de Rome in 1776, Desprez left his native France for Italy, where he arrived the following year.  Soon after his arrival in Rome, he was invited by the Abbé de Saint Non to travel to southern Italy, to prepare illustrations for his Voyage pittoresque, ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile.  Working alongside Charles-Louis Châtelet, Desprez produced a great number of topographical drawings and watercolors of Naples, Pozzuoli, Pompeii and the surrounding area, which were then engraved for publication.

The highly dramatic nature of the Grotta di Palazzo, located in the small seaside town of Polignano a Mare, near Bari, would have undoubtedly been a particularly inspirational setting for Desprez, whose future career took him to Sweden, where he created stage designs for King Gustav III.  Yet despite Desprez's virtuoso portrayal of the Grotto, which he would have seen during his visit to Polignano in the spring of 1778, it was to be his artistic travelling companion, Chatelet, whose two depictions of the same location would eventually be engraved and published in volume III of Voyage pittoresque.

Desprez's appreciation of this highly theatrical location is demonstrated by the survival not only of a preparatory drawing for the present composition in pen and gray ink,¹ but also of two other finished versions with watercolor, one in the collection of the Art Institute, Chicago,² the other in a private collection.

^1. Stockholm, Royal Academy

^2. Chicago, Art Institute, inv. no. 1967.32