Late 18th-century Provencal school depicting a neoclassical - Lot 28

Late 18th-century Provencal school depicting a neoclassical landscape of ancient ruins in brown wash, featuring the Château d'Escouloubre (under a rising sun). The subject is encircled by a border of linked beams, and is surmounted by a coat of arms under a marquis's crown, held by two lions and encircled by standards and a phylactery. Bearing the motto: "Fortitudo mea et spes mea deus". Oil on canvas (Restoration, modern stretcher) 159, 5 x 200 cm. The coat of arms is that of Louis de Monstron de Sauton (1755-1834), mayor of Toulouse in 1814, and deputy to the Estates General of 1789 for the Languedoc nobility. 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), awarded by default to officers with over 20 years' service (24 after 1792). A monarchist supporter upon the return of Louis XVIII, he developed the province of Toulouse and in particular the Escouloubre lands, modernizing the château, installing a tile factory and planting crops to solve famines, managed by seven tenant farms. He also maintained the Académie des jeux floraux and was a great patron of the arts in Toulouse. This scene was probably composed for Château d'Escouloubre, then set and moved to the salon of the Marquis d'Escouloubre's hotel in Agen, by Marquis Emmanuel de Monstron de Sauton, who died in 1930 without posterity.