Mariette called Patel (1605–1676), the artist of this exceptional drawing, the "Claude Lorraine de la France."(1) Its composition is close to the painting Landscape with the Journey to Emmaus in the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk (2) and it is one of a number of drawings by Patel employing the device of a colonnaded structure seen from the side which leads the eye back into the landscape. The receding colonnade device is used also in works in Dresden such as Rebecca going from Bethuel and Laban of a similar size and technique.(3) The painting in the Chrysler to which this drawing is connected was executed in 1652, the same year that Patel collaborated with Eustache Le Sueur on the Hotel Lambert paintings. However closely connected the Crocker sheet is to the Chrysler drawing, it has been suggested that it may be closer still and perhaps a preparation of some sort for the 1650 painting Landscape with Antique Ruins in the Kunstmuseum, Basel.(4) Another drawing in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, shows the same study in reverse.(5)
Drawings by Patel are rather rare. There are six landscapes by him in the Louvre, four of which are executed in the familiar black and white chalks on gray paper(6), while two others are in gouache on vellum.(7) The four landscapes in chalk on gray paper were in the Mariette collection. Mariette thought very highly of Patel, noting that his sense of perspective was perfect and that his paintings and drawings reveal a sureness of touch. Another three drawings in the same technique as the Crocker sheet are in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden and are published in Christian Dittrich's article.(8)
Cara Denison, in William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010Notes:
(1) Abécédario de P. J. Mariette et autres notes inédites de cet amateur sur les arts et les artistes, ouvrage publié d'après les manuscripts autographes au cabinet des estampes de la bibliothèque impériale, et annoté par MM.Ph. de Chennevières et A. de Montaiglon, vol. IV, Paris 1857–58, p.88.
(2) Harrison 1986 as in Literature above, no. 3, repr.
(3) 14.0 x 22.3 mm., black and white chalk with pen. See Dittrich 1979 as in Literature above, pp. 146–151, figs.1–3
(4) Harrison 1986 as in Literature above, no. 3, note 3. David Steadman? makes this suggestion in the Norfolk catalogue.
(5) Schulz 1968 as in Literature above, under no 14.
(6) inv. nos. 32282, 32283, 32284, 32255, all executed in black and white chalk on gray paper, larger than the Crocker sheet, measuring ca. 26 x 38 cm. All four are from the collection of P. J. Mariette and were acquired for the Cabinet du Roi in 1775.
(7) inv. nos. RF 1958 and 1959
Inscriptions: none
Marks: none
Provenance: Edwin Bryant Crocker, by 1871; gift of his widow Margaret to the Museum, 1885
Literature: William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010, no. 31; Hilliard Goldfarb, From Fontainebleau to the Louvre, French Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat. Cleveland, 1989, under no. 81; Jefferson C. Harrison, French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum, exh. cat. Norfolk, 1986, under no.3, note 3; Christian Dittrich, "Zeichnung von Pierre Patel des Älteren: Drei unbekannte Werke im Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden," in Dresdener Kunstblätter, vol. V, no. 23, 1979, p. 147; French Drawings from the E. B. Crocker Collection, exh. cat. Long Beach, 1979, no. 31; Pierre Rosenberg, French Master Drawings of the 17th and 18th Centuries in North American Collections, exh. cat. Toronto and tour, London, 1972, no. 106; Master Drawings from Sacramento, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 1971, no. 66; Pierre Rosenberg, "Twenty French Drawings in Sacramento," in Master Drawings, vol. VIII, no. 1, Spring 1970, no. 1; Jürgen Schultz, Master Drawings from California Collections, exh. cat. Berkeley, 1968, no. 14; Numa S. Trivas, Three Centuries of Landscape Drawing, exh. cat. Sacramento, 1940, no. 58
