19th Century FRENCH SCHOOL
Buildings on the Quai des Celestins, Paris
Pen and black ink and brown and grey wash and touches of watercolour, over a pencil underdrawing.
152 x 335 mm. (6 x 13 1/4 in.)
152 x 335 mm. (6 x 13 1/4 in.)
The Quai des Celestins runs alongside the right bank of the Seine, on the edge of the Marais district in the 4th arrondisement of Paris. The present sheet appears to show the former Hôtel Fieubet, located at 2 and 2 bis on the Quai des Celestins, facing the tip of the Île Saint-Louis. Built between 1676 and 1681 by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart for the magistrate Gaspard III de Fieubet, Chancellor to Queen Marie-Thérèse, it was designed as a main building with two wings, with the interior decorated with now-lost paintings by Eustache Le Sueur. In the 18th century the Hôtel Fieubet passed through several owners, falling into a decline as the Marais became more industrialized following the Revolution and as other neighbourhoods in Paris became more fashionable, and by the first quarter of the 19th century had become a sugar refinery. Acquired in 1857 by Count Adrien de Lavalette, the Hôtel was partially renovated in a neo-Baroque style but the work remained incomplete due to a lack of funding, and the building eventually fell into disrepair, with only parts of it used as shops. In 1877 the site was acquired for the sum of 540,000 francs by the Abbé Nouvelle and the building was fully restored in order to serve as a school, and since that time it has been the site of the Ecole Massillon.
Provenance
Possibly Michel Gaud, Saint-Tropez
Anonymous sale (‘Dessins d’architecture’), Monaco, Sotheby’s, 20 June 1987, lot 255
A. Alfred Taubman, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Thence by descent.
Anonymous sale (‘Dessins d’architecture’), Monaco, Sotheby’s, 20 June 1987, lot 255
A. Alfred Taubman, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Thence by descent.
