A mountainous evening landscape with a bridge and peasants, oil on canvas, 64 x 76.5 cm, carved contemporary frame

Provenance:
Anonymous sale, Christie’s, New York, 28 Jan. 2009, lot 297.

Louis-Gabriel Moreau, called “L’Aîné” so as to distinguish him from his brother, Jean-Michel Moreau, was one of the leading French landscapists during the second half of the 18th Century. After his apprenticeship under the architectural painter Pierre Antoine Demachy, he developed a highly individual style that might almost be described as romantic and which was characterized by an awareness of nature. In his pictures, nature becomes the source of sensual and spiritual delight. Moreau populated his paintings with fragments of ancient ruins, fountains, and monuments, thereby continuing the 17th Century tradition of Arcadian landscapes. In 1761, he exhibited for the first time at the Exposition de la Jeunesse. In 1764, he became a member of the Académie de Saint-Luc, where he presented his works on an annual basis. As landscape painter he was not admitted to the Académie Royale, and he was not allowed to exhibit at the Salon before 1791. In later years he was appointed court painter to the Count of Artois, the king’s younger brother, which involved the privilege of residing at the Louvre. In Moreau’s oeuvre, landscapes in gouache prevail and oil paintings are quite rare.