Two Wrestlers in front of a large Crowd of Spectators

Adrien Manglard

1695 Lyon – 1760 Rome

Red chalk. Sheet size: 36 x 48.2 cm. On a French mount with an old inscription in brown ink: manglard.

Provenance:Jean-Baptiste-Florentin-Gabriel de Meryan, Marquis de Lagoy, Arles (1764 – 1829). (Lugt 1710); Several eighteenth-century collectors’ numbers

This is an unusual subject for Manglard who is better known as a painter of marine and genre scenes. To our knowledge he only treated it twice: in the present drawing and in an oil painting of very similar composition, Festa a Maccarese con gara di lotta (Maddalo, Rome 1982, pp. 121-122, cat. no 52 ill.). Manglard’s early work, llike Watteau’s, was inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting; Maddalo further notes the influence of the Bamboccianti, whom Manglard probably encountered in Rome.

Manglard is particularly interesting as a draughtsman and printmaker. His original etchings are considered rare and are today in great demand.

Bought by a museum, Northern America.