Artist: Pérelle family (Gabriel Pérelle le père 1604-1677 or his son Adam Pérelle 1640-1693)
Title: Landscape with Gothic ruin
Date: XVIIth-century
School: French XVIIth-century
Medium: etching
Dimensions: 245 x 320mm (plate), 310 x 450mm (sheet)
Watermark: see image
Inscriptions/marks: in the plate lower left border <<Perelle inu. et fecit>>; in the plate lower centre border <<Avec priulege du Roy>>; in the plate lower right border <<chez P. Mariette 2>>
Condition: good impression on laid paper with wide margins and clear watermark, slightly rubbed at lower right corner
Description: landscape with figures and partially ruined Gothic church in the mid-ground in front of which is a modern gateway in the style of Salomon de Brosse (1571-1626). Published by the Mariette publishing house.
Reference: According to Noëlle Avel, ‘Les Pérelle graveurs de paysage du XVIIe siècle,’ Bulletin de la société de l’histoire de l’art français, 1973, pp. 143-153, it is extremely difficult to attribute the landscapes of the Pérelle family of engravers. The scale of this landscape print suggests Gabriel but one cannot be certain as his son Adam worked alongside his father and deliberately imitated his father’s style. See BM X, 9.34 for a landscape etching of almost identical dimensions by Gabriel Pérelle published by Pierre Mariette and numbered ‘4’. See also BM X,9.37 for another of similar dimensions published by Pierre Mariette II. And another, BM X,9.33 and BM X,9.16 numbered ‘6’ published by Pierre Mariette, see also BM X,9.35; see also BM 1872,1012.3747; see also BM X,9.31, numbered ‘5’; see also BM X,9.27, numbered ‘2’
Provenance: Paul Prouté, Paris, 2006
