John Peter Norblin de La Gourdaine, Sermon of St. John the Baptist according to REMBRANDT.

52.5 x 67.5cm - etching, drypoint, needlepoint, paper signed on board p.d.: Rembrandt sc. | 1656

On the reverse, numbers (in pencil) at the bottom right: 4000/A66 | D-33/1, p.d.: 146425



Jan Piotr (Jean Pierre) Norblin de la Gourdaine (Misy Faut-Yonne in Switzerland 1745 - Paris 1830) - painter, draughtsman, printmaker; Frenchman active in Poland, associated with the patronage of the Czartoryski dukes, artist particularly distinguished for the development of Polish art and genre painting, set in Polish reality.



He was educated in Paris - initially under the batalist Francesco Casanova, and from 1769 at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. From 1770 to 1771 he studied further at the École Royale des Eléves Protegés with Louis M. Van Loo and Jean-Marie Vienna. He traveled extensively, including several times to London (1772, 1773 and 1774). There he came into contact with Duchess Izabela and Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, for whom he worked from then on, and in 1774 he came to Poland with them. He stayed at the Czartoryskis' residences in the Blue Palace of Warsaw, in Powązki, in Wolczyn. He advised Duchess Izabela Czartoryska on the design of parks in Powązki and Puławy, and later also Helena Radziwiłł in Nieborów's Arcadia.

In 1790 the artist, together with the Czartoryskis, moved to Warsaw, where he trained a group of students in his studio, including Aleksander Orlowski and Michal Plonsky. He also worked for King Stanislaw August. Later he again worked for the Czartoryskis in Puławy. In 1804 he returned to France, and from 1807 lived in Paris.



Norblin was a versatile artist - he painted fête champêtre in the type of French Rococo painting inspired by the work of Watteau I Fragonard (Society on a trip by the lake), created portraits, painted and drew genre scenes based on careful observation of people, everyday life, the nature of the city or the landscape (Odpust na Bielanach near Warsaw). He was a chronicler of various political events; sejmiks, the deliberations of the Great Sejm and the events of the Kościuszko Uprising, which he witnessed and participated in.
While in a military camp, he painted insurgent battles and skirmishes (Battle of Raclawice). He painted in oil and watercolor, and engaged in mural painting (the fresco Dawn on the plafond in the Temple of Diana in Arcadia).
He practiced printmaking; he created etchings inspired by the art of Rembrandt (The Writing Old Man, The Resurrection of Lazarus). Back in Paris, he made a series of works (drawings and watercolors later reproduced as color aquatints), which is known as The Collection of Polish Clothes. Paintings, drawings and engravings can be found in numerous museums, mainly in Poland and France. The largest collection of engravings is kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.