Provencal school of the late eighteenth century representing - Lot 268

Provencal school of the late eighteenth century representing a decor of ruins in the antique within a neoclassical landscape in brown wash in which is presented the castle of Escouloubre (under a rising sun. The subject is surrounded by a border of linked bundles and is overhung by a coat of arms under a marquis crown held by two lions and circled by standards and a phylactery. Bearing the motto: "Fortitudo mea et spes mea deus Oil on canvas (Restorations, modern frame) 159, 5 x 200 cm. The arms are those of Louis de Monstron de Sauton (1755-1834), mayor of Toulouse in 1814, and deputy to the States General of 1789 for the nobility of Languedoc. He was an infantry colonel, which explains the presence of the standards and the decoration of the Order of Saint-Louis (added at the time of the Restoration), granted by default to officers with more than 20 years of service (24 after 1792). A monarchist supporter at the return of Louis XVIII, he developed the province of Toulouse and in particular the lands of Escouloubre, modernizing the castle, installing a tile factory as well as plantations supposed to solve the famines managed by seven tenant farms. He was also the maintainer of the Academy of Floral Games and a great patron of the arts in Toulouse. This scene was probably composed for the château d'Escouloubre and then enshrined and moved to the salon of the Marquis d'Escouloubre's hotel in Agen, by the Marquis Emmanuel de Monstron de Sauton, who died in 1930 without posterity.