• Louis Jean Desprez (theatre designer)
• Louis Jean Desprez (draughtsman)

The Triumph of Hannibal

ca. 1780-1790

- The turbaned figure being carried into the theater seated on a litter certainly refers to a non-Roman figure, possibly Hannibal. Behind this figure is a theater and an imaginary town on a hill. The town buildings recall the Sicilian monuments in the 'Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile' published by the Abbé de Saint-Non in Paris between 1781 and 1786. Desprez interrupted his studies at the French Academy in Rome from December 1777 to January 1779 to accompany Dominique Vivant Denon and several other artists to Naples and Sicily in order to make drawings for this publication. The town buildings also recall several buildings Desprez planned in Stockholm while stage designer and architect to Gustavus III of Sweden from 1784 to 1792.

Pen and black ink and black, beige, grey and green watercolour, heightened with white, red and blue gouache on laid paper /plume et encre noire, avec aquarelle noire, beige, grise et verte, avec rehauts de gouache rouge et bleue, sur papier vergé

sheet: 57.0 x 91.9 cm

DR1984:1641

• pictorial drawing

- Sheet is composed of four pieces of laid paper glued together with traces of a double lining of paper and linen. The drawing has a border in black ink.

• design de théâtre

• stage design