Old Masters

Provenance:
By descent in the family of the artist.
Their sale; Hôtel des Ventes Michelcolombe, Tours, 11 Oct. 1998, lot 25.
Private Collection, UK, acquired at the above sale.

This is evidently a study for a larger painting, currently unknown, although its composition recalls the scenes of the Revolutionary War painted by John Trumbull. General Charles Cornwallis surrendered Yorktown, Virginia to the French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau and the American General George Washington on 19 October 1781.  The French fleet under Admiral de Grasse had played a vital role at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay by preventing the British fleet, under the command of Admiral Graves, from providing Cornwallis’ troops with relief.

Auguste Jean-Baptiste Vinchon was a pupil of Gioacchino Giuseppe Serangeli and Jacques-Louis David.  He won second place in the Prix de Rome in 1813 and the Grand Prix in the following year. During his stay in Rome (1814-16) he resided at the French Academy in the Villa Medici and spent his days copying from the Old Masters and making oil sketches of the city and the surrounding countryside. He also studied fresco painting, and on his return to Paris in 1820 he worked alongside Abel de Pujol and Alexandre Guillemot on the decorative scheme of three chapels at Saint-Sulpice.