Jean-Baptiste Pillement, 1771

Jean-Baptiste Filament, 1771
Untitled
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1771 to right lower corner
Dim.: 78.0 x 100.0 cm
Provenance: Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva collection, Lisbon, Rita Leite Faria collection, Lisbon
Published in: ARAÚJO, A., “Jean-Pillement e o Paisagismo em Portugal no Século XVIII”, FRESS, Lisbon 1997 (a: pp. 74-75, 91; b: 92)

Jean-Baptiste Pillement, 1771
Sem Título
Óleo s/ tela
Assinado e datado 1771 c.i.d.
Dim.: 78,0 x 100,0 cm
Proveniência: Ex-coleção Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva, Lisboa, coleção Rita Leite Faria, Lisboa
Reproduzido em: ARAÚJO, A., Jean-Pillement e o Paisagismo em Portugal no Século XVIII, FRESS, Lisboa 1997 (a: pp. 74-75, 91; b: 92)

Jean Pillement was a renowned artist who excelled in the production of “chinoiserie” paintings – his main body of work between 1750 and 1770 – and landscapes, genre that he covered almost exclusively from 1755 onwards. He became painter to Queen Marie Antoinette, namely at the Petit Trianon, and to the King of Poland (1767).
As a young man he travelled through the various European courts, arriving in Portugal in 1755 in order to work at the Royal Silks Factory, due to his previous experience and knowledge as a designer at the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins. He will return to the country again in 1766 and in 1780.
In 1786 Pillement founds the Oporto Drawing School, where he will have the painter Vieira Portuense as his pupil.

Great admirer of Jean Pillement’s work, Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva (1900-1955), collected a considerable number of his works, amongst which were also the present landscape paintings.

The works that the artist produced in Portugal were mainly focused on landscape paintings of strong naturalistic and imaginative dimension, influenced by Watteau and Fragonard. These landscapes, charged with personal emotions, express his evident love for nature while somehow mirroring the landscapes he experienced first-hand, a fact that imprints character and depth to his work.