LEGEAY, Jean-Laurent
(b. ca. 1710, Paris, d. after 1788)

Figure Standing under a Stone Arch

1768
Etching, 187 x 158 mm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Mid-eighteenth-century artists who sojourned at the French Academy in Rome had developed a taste for fanciful architectural drawings, nourished on the details of a visionary architecture influenced by Piranesi's contemporary engravings. Jean-Laurent Legeay, who stayed at the French Academy from 1738 to 1742 produced fantastic compositions throughout a long, eventful career in Germany, England, and Toulouse.

This etching is from the series Views of Ruins.