[Engraving]. Louis François CASSAS (1756-1828). - Lot 112

[Engraving]. Louis François CASSAS (1756-1828). View of the Obelisk of Heliopolia: Today Matarée near Cairo L. F. Cassas f. 55 x 79 cm (tr. c.) and 65 x 87 cm (f.) Watercolor etching with pen and gouache highlights. A pupil of Vien and Lagrenée le Jeune, he brought back drawings from his travels, which he engraved (Holland, 1776). He contributed to the Voyages pittoresques by Abbé de Saint-Non (Sicily) and Choiseul-Gouffier (Syria, 1784-1787), and spent time in Italy (1779-1784; Rome, 1787-1792). He quickly removed his landscapes (watercolors, 1792, Musée d'Orléans), and studied architectural details (Parthenon pediment and frieze) with precision but without dryness, thus contributing, from his return to France (1792), to the spread of a taste for Antiquity and the Mediterranean East.