François-Auguste Ravier

An unidentified collection stamp (not in Lugt), stamped in blue ink on the backing sheet;

with Galerie Jonas, Paris by 1975

Paris, Galerie Jonas, F. A. Ravier 1814-1895, November 1975, no. 60

A splendid and luminous example of Ravier’s watercolour style, the present sheet dates from one of the artist’s visits to Italy in the 1840s. It is typical of his poetic landscapes, in which there is almost always no trace of a human presence. As Ravier noted in a letter written from Rome soon after his arrival there in 1840, his first visits to the countryside beyond the city walls made a deep impression on him: ‘Around three quarters of a mile outside the walls there begins a desert where there is nothing but wild plants and ruins. I walked for an hour without meeting anyone other than a monk who said his breviary…But that which brings to the utmost degree the beauty and sadness of this place, are the ancient tombs in ruins which line the road on both sides at the left and right…It is the landscape which has made the greatest impression on me.’¹ In the vicinity of Rome, Ravier is known to have visited Ariccia, Subiaco, Cervara, Ostia, Nemi, Anzio, Olevano and elsewhere.

This fine watercolour landscape, one of Ravier’s largest works as a draughtsman, depicts two gates in the southern part of the Aurelian Walls of Rome. The Porta Asinaria, with its two tower blocks, dominates the centre of the composition, while the Porta San Giovanni is at the left. The former was built between 270 and 273 A.D., at the same time as the Wall itself, while the Porta San Giovanni dates from 1574, when it replaced the older Porta Asinaria, which had become overwhelmed by traffic. To the right of this view, although not depicted by Ravier in the present sheet, is the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano.

A far more distant watercolour view of the Aurelian Walls is in a private collection in France², while a stylistically comparable watercolour, Roman Landscape with a View of St. Peter’s, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims.³ Among other drawings by Ravier of sites and monuments in and around Rome is a view of the 16th century Porta Furba and the Acqua Felice aqueduct, drawn in charcoal on blue paper, in the Maison Ravier in Morestel.⁴

^1.‘A trois quarts de lieue en dehors des murs commence un desert où il n’y a que des plantes sauvages et des ruines. J’ai marché une heure sans rencontrer d’autres personnes qu’un moine qui disait son bréviaire…Mais ce qui porte au supreme degré la beauté et la tristresse de ce lieu, ce sont les tombeaux antiques ruinés qui bordent des deux côtés la route à droite et à gauche…C’est le paysage qui m’a fait le plus d’impression.’; quoted in ‘Chronologie’, in Paris, Galerie Jonas, op. cit., unpaginated, under 1840

^2.Paris, Galerie Jonas, op. cit., no.62; Dominique Brachlianoff and Christine Boyer-Thiollier, ed., François-Auguste Ravier 1814-1895, exh. cat., Lyon, 1996, p.139, no.11

^3.Inv. 949.1.45; Brachlianoff and Boyer-Thiollier, op. cit., p.139, no.12, reproduced p. 84

^4.Inv. 2009.3.1; Nathalie Lebrun, F. A. Ravier 1814-1895, Morestel 2016, pp. 30-31