Gezicht van een hooggelegen terras over een landschap met bochtige rivier 1705 - 1759

Jacques André Portail created this drawing of a landscape with river from a high terrace using graphite. In eighteenth-century France, landscape art became a vehicle for expressing ideas about nature, property and social order. This sketch offers us a panoramic vista, meticulously controlled and neatly divided into discrete zones. But it's not just about the lay of the land: it’s a statement about ownership, control and the imposition of human will onto nature. The terrace itself is a constructed space, a stage from which the privileged viewer can survey their domain. To truly understand this drawing, we need to consider the social and economic forces at play in Portail's France. Who commissioned works like these, and what did they want to communicate? By consulting period documents, estate records, and social histories, we can peel back the layers of meaning embedded in this seemingly simple landscape.