François-Jean SABLET (Morgues, 1745 - Nantes, 1819) View of a park in the surroundings of Nantes, 1808 Canvas Signed and dated lower left: "Sablet / 1808 57 x 46 cm Provenance : Mathurin Crucy (1749-1826); then by descent. Exhibition : Les Frères Sablet (1775-1815), peintures, dessins, gravures, Nantes, Musées Départementaux de Loire-Atlantique; Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts; Rome, Museo di Roma Palazzo Braschi, 1985, dir. A. van de Sandt, no. lOS, reproduced p. 124. The three Crucy brothers: Mathurin, Louis and Antoine and the two Sablet brothers were in close contact throughout their lives. They had become friends in Rome from 1779-1780. François Sablet represents Mathurin Crucy in an interior in 1815 (Nantes, family collection of the descendants of Mathurin Crucy). Although our painting is not identifiable among the many works of the Sablet brothers represented in this portrait, it is indeed part of the collection of Mathurin Crucy, who acquired it directly from François Sablet around 1808, the date of its execution. The painting could represent the Bégraisière estate in Saint-Herblain, near Nantes, purchased by the architect at the time of the revolutionary seizures, or one of his properties on the banks of the Loire, as the waterway and the hillsides visible in the distance seem to indicate.