Michel-Martin Drölling

Private collection;

sale, Paris, Jean-Marc Delvaux, 18 December 1998, lot 265;

with W.M. Brady & Co., Inc., New York, Old Master Drawings, 2000, no. 39,

where acquired by Diane A. Nixon

New York, The Morgan Library & Museum; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Private Treasures: Four Centuries of European Master Drawings, 2007, no. 74 (entry by Jennifer Tonkovich);

Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art; Ithaca, New York, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Drawn to Excellence: Renaissance to Romantic Drawings from a Private Collection, 2012-2013, no. 85

This handsome and strikingly direct portrait drawing was executed during Drölling’s period in Rome, where he lived from 1811 until 1816, after being awarded the Prix de Rome in 1810. The identity of the sitter, which was first proposed by Mark Brady and Thomas Williams (see Provenance) can, with some confidence, be confirmed as Gaspard Bonnet (1779-1854). Bonnet was the chief inspector for French imperial properties (Directeur des Domaines) in Rome under Napoleon and also sat for Ingres in 1812.¹ The sitter in both the present work and the Ingres drawing share many clear similarities in facial features, hairstyle and dress.

^1.See sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 July 2014, lot 99