RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (attributed to) (ARNOLD 1802 – LONDON 1828) Monumental view of Rue Royale and Place Louis XVI, Paris c. 1826 Oil on canvas 214 cm x 205 cm Provenance: Collection of Madame Roussel; her sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Mes Lair-Dubreuil and Baudoin, 25–28 March 1912, lot 26 This masterful work immediately commands attention with its monumental, almost immersive scale, offering a spectacular view of one of the most iconic landscapes of the French capital. Painted around 1826, it captures a pivotal moment in Parisian urban development: the Place de la Concorde depicted under its short-lived name of ‘Place Louis XVI’. The attribution to Richard Parkes Bonington, already defended at the prestigious Georges Petit auction in 1912, is underpinned by an atmospheric treatment of rare virtuosity in which the sky, occupying more than half the composition, becomes a masterpiece in its own right. Here, the artist deploys the full palette of Anglo-French Romanticism, from silvery greys to luminous flashes of pale yellow, capturing with meteorological precision the instability and poetry of the Parisian air. The light, ethereal and vibrant, caresses the façades of the Rue Royale with a gentleness that only Bonington’s precocious genius could imbue. At the centre of this vast composition stands the ‘orphaned plinth’ laid by Charles X on 3 May 1826, intended to house the statue of Louis XVI. This detail, of absolute historical accuracy, makes this canvas a unique and unprecedented document. The viewer is transported to the Paris of the Restoration, between the Dome of Les Invalides, which rises majestically through the mist, and the imposing silhouette of the Madeleine, which closes the perspective in the distance. The bustle on the ground testifies to a perfect mastery of urban life: elegant carriages drawn by spirited horses, onlookers in period costume and figures sketched with a liveliness reminiscent of the artist’s finest sketches. One can sense the bustle of the street, the clatter of hooves on the cobblestones and that romantic energy so characteristic of the nascent 19th century . This painting is more than just an architectural view; it is a vivid portrait of a city in the midst of transformation, captured by the eye of a prodigious painter. With its extraordinary dimensions and the exceptional quality of its execution, this work stands as one of the most ambitious depictions in 19th-century French landscape painting.