Grandjean de Montigny. Tuscan architecture. Design for a frontispiece. 1812

Auguste Grandjean de Montigny (1776-1850)
Pieces of Tuscan architecture (Fragments architecturaux), by 1805 - 1812
Pen and black ink and watercolour on paper
Preparatory drawing to the plate n°86 published in "Architecture Toscane ou Palais, Maisons et autres édifices de la Toscane", forming the frontispiece to the 15th volume, published in 1812
Dimensions : 25,5 x 17,3 cm
In a Empire period giltwood frame : 49,5 x 43 cm

Exhibited : Salon de 1814 n°1194


This drawing shows the large fountain surmounted by a bronze figure of Venus by Giambologna, in the gardens of the Villa La Pietraia, the former pleasure house of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. The sculpted marble bench is one of two in Siena's Loggia della Mercanzia. It was chiselled by Antonio Federighi and is adorned with statues of Roman heroes from the period of the Republic. The bronze Sienese she-wolf (Lupa senese) is the emblem of the city of Siena, similar to the one in front of the Duomo.


Auguste Grandjean de Montigny, French Architect and Prix de Rome in 1801, was born in 1776 in the parish of Saint Merry into a family from the Parisian bourgeoisie. In 1796, he enrolled at the School of Architecture, which had just been created by a decree of 1795, where he won first prize for his project for a commercial city gate. He was 20 years old and part of the first generation of Charles Percier's students, probably one of the most promising. He was the first of them to qualify for the Grand Prix de Rome, winning it in September 1799, ex-aequo with Louis Sylvestre Gasse, with a project for an Élysée or public cemetery. A resident at the Académie de France in Rome from 1801 to 1805, he stayed at the Villa Medici, which had just been acquired by France, and took part in the renovation work to accommodate the boarders. Following in his master's footsteps, he studied Renaissance architecture in Italy and between 1806 and 1815 published Architecture Toscane, the fruit of his research, with his fellow student Auguste Famin, also a pupil of Percier and winner of the Prix de Rome in 1801.

As explained in the foreword of his book, this work is directly inspired by Palaces and Houses of Rome, published in 1798 by Percier and Fontaine. The same interest in Renaissance architecture, the same division into fascicles, each preceded by a frontispiece. And Grandjean de Montigny, like his master Charles Percier in his time, was particularly busy designing the eighteen frontispieces placed at the beginning of each issue.

These compositions of architectural fragments, directly inspired by the work of Charles Percier, enrich the book, devoted to the domestic architecture of Tuscany, with an ornamental dimension inspired by antiquity. In addition, the form of these ornamental compositions imposes a freer type of architectural design, different from the traditional plans, sections and façades, and testifies to the artistic dimension of the architect's practice, as well as his attention to detail.

Auguste Grandjean de Montigny, who exhibited at the Salon from 1806 onwards, won a gold medal in 1808 for another composition of fragments in the manner of Percier, and at the same time had an isolated plate engraved entitled: Raccoltà di diversi frammenti antichi disegnati in Roma da Augusto Grandjean. At the Salon of 1814 he exhibited under the number 1192 Feuilles détachées d'un ouvrage publié sur les édifices de la Toscane and under the number 1194 Dessins de Fragments faisant partie de l'ouvrage sur la Toscane, which correspond to our watercolours.

Grandjean de Montigny, who was King Jerome's architect in Cassel during the Empire period, was part of the French Artistic Mission that arrived in Rio in 1816, when Dom João VI, King of Portugal, created the Royal School of Science, Arts and Crafts, where the French were tasked with training a new generation of artists and producing projects in line with the rules of the neoclassical style, the most modern of the time.
He spent the second half of his career in the service of the emperors of Brazil, and died in Rio in 1850.