JEAN BAPTISTE LALLEMAND (attr. to) (Dijon, 1716 - Paris, 1803) Fantasy Harbour View Oil on canvas, 160.5X153.9 cm Trained in the workshop of Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni (Florence, 1695 - Paris, 1766), an artist who was a pupil of Pannini and moved to Paris in 1724, working as a painter and stage designer for the Opéra, Lallemand became a member of the Academy of St. Luke in Paris in 1745. Two years later he moved to Rome, where he stayed for fourteen years, coming into contact with Etienne Parrocel, Claude-Joseph Vernet and Jean Barbault. In the Eternal City he painted some frescoes in the Palazzo Corsini alla Lungara, now lost, the 1758 Finding of Moses for the papal rooms of the Quirinale (Pinacoteca Vaticana) and the views still preserved at Villa Lante in Bagnaia. Returning to France in 1761, he devoted himself to painting views of Rome and scenic fantasy landscapes with an Italianising character, which were extraordinarily successful. Between 1770 and 1773, he was in Dijon as a judge at the local Drawing School, and during the same period he devoted himself to the edition of Voyage pittoresques de la France (1781-1796), for which he executed no less than one hundred and forty views. The canvas presented here, therefore, well documents the painter's mature activity and can be judged among his happiest creations for the harmonious cohesion of the archaeological taste of Italian flavour, the influence of Claude Joseph Vernet and Lacroix de Marseille and Arcadian culture. Reference bibliography: A. Busiri Vici, Opere romane di Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, in L'urbe 1977, 40, 1977,5, pp. 1-5 G. Sestieri, Jean Baptiste Lallemand, in Il capriccio architettonico in Italia nel XVII e XVIII secolo, Rome 2015, II, pp. 252-262