Jean Pillement

(Lyon 1728–1808)
A shepherd couple in a mountainous landscape,
oil on canvas, 39.5 x 50.5 cm, framed

Jean Baptiste Pillement led an unusually cosmopolitan life, even for an eighteenth-century artist. First, he worked for the Gobelin factory and then in 1754 he left Paris for Madrid. There he stayed for three years. His work was highly appreciated both in Spain and in Portugal, where he often visited. He supervised sets of Rococo singeries and chinoiseries painted for the Quinta de Alegria near Sintra, commissioned by Jan Gildemeester, Dutch consul in Lisbon. Soon after he was offered the title of Painter to the King. He declined this honour and instead travelled to London. After beginning his career as a draughtsman of decorative motifs, Pillement turned to landscape painting while he was in England. In Portugal during the 1780s, a time period which has often been cited as the peak of his career, he extended his artistic range to include estuary and harbour views. Pillement’s style has often been compared with that of Vernet, while the influence of seventeenth-century Dutch painting is also evident. In the present work, the naturalistic vignettes of idyllic country life in the foreground, depicted in earth tones punctuated by the brightly coloured garments of the peasants, evoke the paintings of Nicolaes Berchem, which in turn suggest that the work can be dated to Pillement’s sojourn in England.

During his years in England, Pillement had enjoyed excellent relations with his English patrons, engravers and publishers. In 1765 he went to Warsaw, decorating the Royal Palace there and the Ujazdowski Palace, his largest project, commissioned by the Polish King Stanislaus August Poniatowski. He also worked in Saint Petersburg, Turin, Milan, Rome and Venice. Pillement travelled to Paris to work for Queen Marie Antoinette in her Petit Trianon in Versailles. At the end of his life the artist went back to Lyon, where he worked as a designer for the silk industry and gave lessons in the Academy founded by Napoleon.