An artist sketching and other figures among the ruins of the Temple of Diana at Nîmes (recto); Sketch of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes (verso)

Already as an architecture student in Paris, Clérisseau showed interest in the Roman monuments of Nîmes. When he returned to France from Rome in 1767, he studied and documented the Southern french city’s ancient buildings, and in 1778 published the first volume of his Antiquités de la France, Monuments de Nismesi (see Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820). Dessins du musée de l’Ermitage de Saint-Petersbourg, exhib. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1995, pp. 55-60; and T. J. McCormick, Charles Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neo-Classicism, New York, 1991, pp. 135-145). Nine of the 39 plates were dedicated to the temple known as the Maison Carrée, and twenty-one to the temple of Diana, depicted here. During his distinguished career, Clérisseau received commissions from French, British and Russian commissions, many of wish, however, remained unrealized. Between 1784 and 1790, Clérisseau collaborated with Thomas Jefferson on the design of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, of which the design is based on the Maison Carrée in Nîmes.