Works on Paper 2019 - Jean Luc Baroni

Pietro Giacomo Palmieri
Bologna 1737 - Turin 1804
23
Shepherds and their Animals Caught in the Wind
Pen and brown ink, brown wash
Signed Palmierus In Fecit. at lower left
185 x 260 mm (7 1 /4 x 10 1 /4 in.)
Trained at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna
with Donato Creti and Ercole Graziani, Pietro
Giacomo Palmieri studied not only Bolognese but
also Venetian landscape models, such as those
of Marco Ricci, Giuseppe Zaïs and Francesco
Zuccarelli. Around 1770, he settled in Parma which
was then experiencing an economic and cultural
boom and was governed by Duke Philippe I (Philippe
de Bourbon) and his secretary Guillaume du Tillot.
The latter, who became Prime Minister in 1759,
quickly detected Palmieri’s talent and appointed
him as professor of drawing at the Academy of Fine
Arts in Parma, created under his leadership along
with the Museum of Antiquity.
In 1773, Guillaume du Tillot fell out of favour and
thus returned to Paris. Palmieri followed him as valet
de chambre and began to draw copies of the paintings
in Tillot’s collection and other works. In Paris, the
Bolognese draughtsman came into contact with
the engraver Jean Georges Wille and the merchant
Basan; he soon achieved considerable fame with
his drawings imitating prints. The collectors and
amateurs of the time also appreciated his actual
prints which were sold in his studio near the Louvre
and by such publishers as Isabey or Basan. The play
of aemulatio between prints and drawings, which
particularly concerned French artists at the time,
had also been explored by such Bolognese artists
as Gandolfi. Thus, it had a special resonance for
Palmieri, who gladly copied, produced pastiches for
amateurs, drew splendid trompe-l’œil compositions
and amalgamated various influences. Despite his
Parisian success, Palmieri visited England, Spain
and Switzerland and then returned to Turin where
he settled permanently. He brought with him the
taste for drawings as finished and collectable works
as well as his concept of landscape forged from the
English, French and northern influences that he had
acquired during his journeys.
The present drawing is a perfect example of the
different cultures assimilated by Palmieri during his
travels. Various influences come to mind: Bolognese
through hatching lines in pen, Genoese and
Lombard through rustic or even northern subjects.
We can also relate the subject chosen by Palmieri,
that of a gust of wind, to his French culture: the
draughtsman could not ignore the characteristic
attempt of French painters of the second half of
the eighteenth century to capture in painting the
feeling of air and its atmospheric variations, such as,
for example, Joseph Vernet in his Midi sur terre, le
coup de vent (Gust of Wind) (1767 Avignon, Musée
Calvet), and Jean Honoré Fragonard in L’Orage ou la
Charrette embourbée (The Strom or the Cart Stuck
in the Mud) (ca. 1759, Paris, Musée du Louvre).
Signed in fine penmanship, with neat framing lines
in brown ink, this drawing is a work of art in its own
right intended for a collector.
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