Nicolas VLEUGHELS (Paris 1668 - Rome 1737) Rome, Milvius bridge or ponte Molle, 1708 Pen, brown ink and brown wash. Titled and dated lower right: "Ponté mole Le jour de la St. pierre 1708". (Formerly folded in 4 and freckled, glued in full on the mount). 21.9 x 31.1 cm Reference: Martin Eidelberg, "Le Paysagisme et l'Académie de France à Rome", in. Rêveries italiennes : Watteau et les paysagistes français au XVIIIe siècle, cat. exp. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes, September 25, 2015-January 17, 2016, Ghent, 2015, pp. 114-156. We would like to thank Madame Ester Giachetti, who kindly confirmed the authenticity of this drawing after a visual examination. It will be included in her catalog raisonné currently in preparation. Nicolas Vleughels studied painting in Italy from 1703 to 1715. From this first trip, he brought back an album of drawings describing the main cities he visited, including Rome, Venice, Padua and Bassano. Very few of these sheets have survived, although some were copied by Watteau, a close friend of Vleughels. Those that do exist are systematically located in the same way as the one presented here, with the same spelling, and all are dated either 1707 or 1708, some with the date underlined in the same way (View of Bassano, 1707, location unknown). Vleughels passed on this habit of precision to his pupils, notably Étienne Jeaurat and Nicolas Delobel.