Place St. Marc a Venice

Beautiful view of St. Mark's Square by Jean-Baptiste Arnout, published by Aubert Printing House circa 1850.

Jean-Baptiste Arnout or Arnould (Dijon, June 24, 1788 - Paris 15e, October 5, 1873) was a French painter, draftsman and lithographer. Arnout was a pupil of Anatole Devosge, who taught at the Dijon School of Fine Arts, which he directed from 1811. Arnout then left for Paris, living in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, rue Clément, where he had his studio and exhibited several works at the Salon from 1819 to 1837. A passionate traveler, visiting France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, London and St. Petersburg, he first exhibited paintings inspired by Paris and Rome, then, from 1824, mainly lithographs and some watercolors depicting French and European monuments and architecture.

Initially claiming to be a "printer-fabricator," Jean-Baptiste Arnout produced a large number of illustrations for architectural works, and although most of his images were printed on Lemercier machines, the earliest were produced by Godefroy Engelmann; he was also employed by the publisher Aubert. Jean-Baptiste Arnout seems to have stopped producing lithographic drawings after 1857. His last Paris address was 9 rue Saint-Lambert, where he died in 1873 as a widower and pensioner; his body is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

A fine example with beautiful contemporary colouring.