Lot 1176 Dα

Jean-Antoine Julien hailed from Italian Switzerland, underwent several trips to Rome and Venice and spent the majority of his life in France. Although the courtly rococo fashion was still at the height of its popularity throughout Europe, Julien developed his own unique neoclassical style which was far ahead of his time. He was not particularly well known during his life time, and his perhaps only patron was Guillaume du Tillot, prime minister at the court of Parma, which earned the artist his moniker “de Parme”. Apart from occasionally being mistaken for the artist Simon Julien, Jean-Antoine remained relatively unknown until his discovery by the director of the Louvre Pierre Rosenberg who exhibited his works in Paris in 1998. Rosenberg dates the present work to the 1780s.