Curtis_O_Baer_2010

28. Attributed to Pierre Puget French, 1620 – 1694

Ships Entering a Harbor

Ink and colored wash 7 5 ⁄ 8 x 12 3 ⁄ 4 inches ( 19 . 4 x 32 . 4 cm) Inscribed on the verso at left: Descartes

provenance Colnaghi’s, London; Collection Curtis O. Baer

exhibition Atlanta, 1985 , cat. no. 151 , p. 187

literature Edmund Schilling, “Zwei Unbekannte Landschaftszeichnungen von Pierre Puget,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen , 1974 , p. 177 , illus. 1 Pierre Puget worked with Pietro da Cortona in Rome in 1640 and collaborated with him on the ceiling of the Barberini Palace, where two of the figures of tritons are considered to be by him. He also worked on the ceiling of the Pitti Palace in Florence. In 1643 , Puget returned to his native Marseilles where he painted portraits and sculpted. He left briefly again for Rome at the request of Anne of Austria and studied architecture. In 1653 , the artist returned to Marseilles where, after a serious illness, he completed the decoration of the famous door of the L’Hôtel de Ville in Toulon as well as a sculpted bust of Louis XIV which disappeared during the French Revolution more than a century later. Puget had a specialty in ship design and decoration and continued to sculpt and to create bas-relief. This carefully executed drawing of ships entering a harbor dates from around late 1668 , shortly after Puget’s return to France. It was at this time that Puget began work commis sioned by the French finance minister Colbert to direct the decoration of warships in Toulon. The drawing is quite similar to a sheet of the same size now in the British Museum, Landscape with Military Exercises, Mont Faron, Toulon . According to Schilling, neither drawing was directly related to Puget’s work for Colbert, but were among the many independent seascapes that the artist drew throughout his career. While Schilling identified the location of the British Museum drawing on the basis of its inscription and period maps, the precise location of the fortified harbor in the Baer drawing has yet to be identified.