Arcadian Landscape

1792 · Private collection

landscape

Nicolas-Didier Boguet was one of the leading French classical landscape artists working in Italy around the turn of the nineteenth century. Although he trained as a history painter, he established his reputation in Italy as a painter of landscapes. This canvas depicts an Arcadian landscape with shepherds playing pipes, resting on the banks of a stream, with mountains beyond.

About the Artist

Nicolas-Didier Boguet

1755 – 1839

French painter and draughtsman, active in Italy. Sent to Paris at the age of 23 as a protégé of the Prince de Condé, he was admitted to the Académie on the recommendation of Augustin Pajou to study history painting. In 1783 he went to Rome, where he began to concentrate on landscape, spending the summer months outdoors in the Roman Campagna. These trips resulted in hundreds of drawings (Rome, Palazzo Farnesina), the best of which have been compared to those of Claude Lorrain. In the 1790s Boguet painted views for European aristocrats staying in Rome, in particular Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, for whom he painted a View of Lake Albano (Musée de Grenoble) in 1795. The following year Boguet was introduced to Napoleon, who persuaded him to paint a number of works celebrating his Italian campaigns, including the Battle of Castiglione (Versailles, Château).

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