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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193
For more information or to purchase, please call 1-800-809-3343 or email us at spaightwood@gmail.com
You can follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spaightwood-Galleries-Inc/122951564441757
I blog there regularly and announce special events and special sales.
Old Master Drawings: Jean-François de Neufforge (Belgium 1714-1791 France): Women
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Several years ago we acquired, with the assistance of a rare book dealer in Brussels, a portfolio of drawings on laid paper, many of which are clearly from the same hand and some of which are signed I:D:N (one is signed I:N:D, some are not signed at all, and one is signed "de Neufforge" with a flourish.) According to both Benezit and Thieme-Becker's biographical encyclopedias of artists, Jean-François de Neufforge was born in Comblain-au-Point, Belgium in 1714 and died in Paris on 19 December 1791. According to an article by Claire Baines in the Grove Dictionary of Art (2000), 22: 925, Neufforge, an architect and sculptor, arrived in Paris around 1738 and studied engraving with Pierre Edmé Babel and architecture with Jacques-François Blondel. Although he worked primarily in the Rococo style, he was also interested in classical sculpture and was aware of his contemporaries, particularly François Boucher (1703-1770). Neufforge's great work was the Recueil élémentaire d'architecture containing roughly 900 architectural engravings, nearly all of which he both designed and engraved (published in several parts in 1757-68 and 1772-1780). According to Prof. Baines, "It is a traditional architect's pattern-book but is of unprecedented scope, containing virtually every type of civic and domestic building then known, including such structures as prisons and lighthouses that had only recently been considered worthy of an architect's attention. In addition, it covers such topics as interior decoration, gardens and methods of construction. In his designs for domestic architecture, Neufforge included models to suit every level of patron, from the most modest to the most aristocratic. The designs draw both on antiquity and the High Renaissance, and the Recueil was extensively used as a source-book throughout the late 18th century." Prof. Baines also suggests that his engraving style was formed while engraving plates for Julien-David Le Roy's book, Les Ruines des ples beaux monuments de la Grèce (Paris, 1758), a work to which he may have been drawn by his interest in classical figures or from which he have become interested in classical figures (like Heraclitos, the weeping philosopher, whose imagined portrat he drew at least twice, once in black chalk and once in red, bordered as if for an engraving. Also part of the exhibition are a several drawings that show classical (Cicero) and contemporary orators which we have hung in couterpoint to a drawing of a Roman king and St. Peter, another famed orator (at least in the opening of the Acts of the Apostles). Also in the show are two groups of drawings, one of fashionable aristocratic women with pearls in their hair or around their necks paired with a coy nude and a woman in a mob cap and the other of which is juxtaposes two drawings of a baby (we assume the Christ child) and one of what we think is a drawing similar to Durer's drawing of the figure who appears in his painting of the 12-year old Jesus teaching the elders in the temple along with two drawings of a modestly dressed young woman who would not be out of place in a traditional depiction of the Virgin Mary, either solo or in a group scene.
Our drawings are on thick laid paper with several different watermarks (though some have no watermark at all). Some treat the same subject (often with one signed and one or two others unsigned); some are surrounded by framing lines as if they were presentation drawings or intended for an album, some are not; some seem to be designed as engravings and have a space reserved for a descriptive printed text, some do not. Some are clearly drawn from life; others seem as though they might have been taken from classical or Renaissance sculptures. Some of the drawings have a marvelous liveliness about them, some are more weighty; all are very well done and in very good condition with the exception of the occasional handling crease or stain, mostly invisible when matted. None show signs of having been matted in the past: they seem to have been kept in a leather case and show no signs of either light or mat stain.
The drawings represent another kind of activity. Stylistically, many of the drawingsparticularly those of womenshow the influence of Boucher and the color crayon noir manner engraving style used to reproduce his works. These engravings, very similar to Woman with turban or Woman with pearl necklace looking down (both on I:D:N: Women) are currently selling for prices up to Please call or email for current pricing information at auction. It is quite possible that some of our drawings were executed as models for such prints.
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Woman with pearl hairdress. Red chalk on laid paper watermarked "EVO." Image size: 360x265mm. Price: SOLD.
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Woman with pearls in her hair looking to the left. Red chalk on laid paper watermarked "WM: VANDER LEY" (Churchill 433: after 1724). Image size: 415x320mm. Price: SOLD.
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Jean François de Neufforge (Comblain-au-Point, 1714-1791 Paris), Woman with pearl necklace looking down. Red and black chalk on laid paper. This piece shows de Neufforge's use of the trois-crayons technique, the combination of red, black, and white chalks that Rubens himself used for many of his studies. Image size: 450x305mm. Price: SOLD
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Jean François de Neufforge (Comblain-au-Point, 1714-1791 Paris), Woman with pearl necklace looking down II. Red chalk drawing on laid paer, 2nd half of the 18th century. Watermark: "Coat of arms." Image size: 450x305mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Woman with French braid looking to the left. Red chalk on laid paper. Signed "I:D:N " lower right. Watermark: Elephant with elaborate R (Churchill 189, c. 1786). Image size: 501x342mm. Price: SOLD
For a brief discussion of the "tête d'expression" in 18th-century French art, see Carter E. Foster, with Sylvain Bellenger and Patrick Shaw Cable, French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 32-33 with reference to Jean-Hughes Taravel's, Head of a Female Figure in Profile, Turned to the Right (c. 1673-70?). While the genre was common during the 18th century, it "became especially important around . . . 1759, the year that a special prize for drawing facial expression from a posed model was established by the comte de Caylus.
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Woman with French braid looking to the left II. Red chalk on laid paper. Watermark: Coat of arms. Image size: 450x305mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
For a brief discussion of the "tête d'expression" in 18th-century French art, see Carter E. Foster, with Sylvain Bellenger and Patrick Shaw Cable, French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001), pp. 32-33 with reference to Jean-Hughes Taravel's, Head of a Female Figure in Profile, Turned to the Right (c. 1673-70?). While the genre was common during the 18th century, it "became especially important around . . . 1759, the year that a special prize for drawing facial expression from a posed model was established by the comte de Caylus.
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Woman looking to right. Red chalk on laid paper watermarked NP (manufactured after 1717). Vertical crease through image. Image size: 465x375mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Woman looking over her left shoulder. Red chalk on laid paper watermarked with a fleur-de-lis manufactured by C & I Honig, after 1683. Image size: 290x215mm. Price: SOLD.
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Woman in a mob cap. Red chalk on laid paper watermarked with an elephant cf. Churchill 189 (1776). Signed I:D:N lower right. Image size: 325x320mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
The drawing is actually a rectangle. Sorry for the distortion!
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French School (second half of the 18th century), Woman with bonnet. Black & red chalk on laid paper watermarked with a fleur-de-lis. Possibly by Jean-Francois de Neufforge, however the work has a very different feel, the shading is different, and the clothing looks later than those associated with de Neufforge. Possibly drawn as a model for an engraver. Image size: 278x215mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com.
We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
We also accept wire transfers and paypal.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
All works are sold with an unconditional guarantee of authenticity (as described in our website listing).
Go back to the top of this page.
Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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