Charles-Louis Clérisseau

Temple of Jupiter in the Diocletian Palace in Split by Charles-Louis Clerisseau, after 1757 pen and Indian ink and brown wash, brush and brown and grey wash, State Hermitage Museum

was a French draftsman, painter and architect. He was one of the pioneers of classicism in England and the rest of Europe.

Clérisseau studied architecture at the Académie royale d'architecture in Paris and won the Prix de Rome in 1746. In 1755, through the sale of drawings to British tourists, he met Robert Adam, whom he taught to draw. He accompanied Robert Adam on a trip along the Adriatic coast, which included extensive surveys and drawings of Diocletian's Palace in Split. The leading role that Clérisseau must have played in this was, however, largely concealed by Robert Adam when he published Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London 1764).

In late 1773, he was commissioned by Tsarina Catherine II to design a house in the ancient taste for the park at Tsarskoye Selo. Instead, he submitted a plan for a huge palace inspired by the Villa Adriana and the Baths of Diocletian, but it was rejected by the tsarina because of its excessive size. Nevertheless, in 1779 she bought a portfolio of more than 1100 drawings from Clérisseau, who regularly sent her additional drawings until 1787. With about 2000 drawings, the Hermitage (Saint Petersburg) in St. Petersburg therefore has the largest collection of works by this artist.