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Jean-Baptiste LE PAON
Paris, 1738 – Paris, 1785
Scene of Soldiers near a Castle
Wash and Pen
25 x 31 cm (38 x 44 cm with frame)
Signed and dated lower right: "Le Paon / 1785"
Collection stamp lower right: "WAO"
Collection number on the back: "25063"
Fine antique baguette
Very good condition
On view at the gallery
Jean-Baptiste Le Paon was an 18th-century French painter and watercolorist. A student of Francesco Casanova, he joined the army in 1756 and specialized in battle scenes. He exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1779 to 1782. He was active in Paris and Versailles. Jean-Baptiste Le Paon was included in the 1925 exhibition "The French Landscape from Poussin to Corot" at the Petit Palais under number 179 ("Maneuvers of the King's House on the Satory Hillsides"). Several of his works are now housed at the Musée Condé in the Château de Chantilly.
Our drawing depicts a military scene near a castle, with a soldier on horseback, a horse arching, and other soldiers crossing the river and bridge.
Another genre scene, a painting held at the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, Poland, "The Prince of Nassau Hunting a Jaguar," dated 1784, is similar to our watercolor. It depicts the same horse arching, a soldier on horseback moving, in a landscape with a castle.
Ref: T3V034A47D