Louis-Gabriel Moreau. (Urn, ruins and figures in a landscape) Watercolor and gouache. 1784. $1,200.00

(Urn, ruins and figures in a landscape)

A beautifully executed and wonderfully detailed landscape painting populated by a fashionably dressed people admiring the picturesque ruins in the background  and a peasant and his donkey closely followed by three goats standing beside the large pillar and urn that frame the left side of the view.

Louis-Gabriel Moreau (1740-1806) is a highly regarded French artist best known for his watercolor and gouache paintings usually executed in a clear bright palette and a spontaneity of style. He is also referred to as "Louis Moreau Aine" or simply "Moreau Aine" to distinguish his work from that of his brother Jean-Michel who was an engraver and draughtsman. Louis-Gabriel Moreau studied under Pierre-Antoine de Machy, a painter who specialized in views of Paris, landscapes and depictions of ruins and these subjects appeared in Moreau's work throughout his career. He was named painter to the Comte d'Artois, the younger brother of Louis XVI who became Charles X, and thus was given lodgings in the Louvre. His first exhibitions were at the Exposition de la Jeunesse in 1960 and 1761 and he exhibited in the open Salons at the Louvre from 1791 to 1804.

Major United States institutions containing Works by Louis-Gabriel Moreau include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Samuel Kress Collection of The National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

5 1/2 x 7 inches, sight, plus narrow margins.
Watercolor with gouache and pencil.
Initialed and dated at lower center  "L.M. 1784."
Excellent condition.