The Room of Marie de Medici, Château of Blois, France

WILLIAM JAMES MÜLLER
Bristol 1802-1845 Bristol
The Room of Marie de Medici, Château of Blois, France

Signed and dated 1841 lower left
Watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and scratching out
195 x 271 mm., 7 ¾ x 10 ½ in.

In the Spring of 1840, Müller was commissioned by Messrs Hodgson and Graves of Pall Mall to produce forty watercolours of French views which related to the Renaissance period of Francis I. Of these forty, twenty-six were to be lithographed for a book `Sketches of the Age of Francis I'. Müller left from Southampton with his pupil Edward Dighton in early June and visited various sites in Normandy reaching Paris on the 17th. After a month there and at Fontainebleau, he visited Orleans, Blois and the Loire valley before returning to England from St Malo in September. A watercolour of this view was published as plate XIII of `Sketches of the Age of Francis I' in 1841, but with different figures.

Provenance:
John Edward Taylor (1830-1905)

Exhibited:
Leeds City Art Gallery, National Exhibition of Works of Art, 1868, no.15;
Birmingham, City Museum and Art Gallery, a Loan Collection of Paintings in Oil and Water-colours by William J. Müller, 1896