Lot 179
Charles-Emile Jacque (French, 1813-1894). Sheep in a Barn. Oil on Board, second half of 19th century. Signed at lower left. A mesmerizing animal painting by French Barbizon artist Charles-Emile Jacque. Jacque was particularly known for his paintings of sheep, and this composition features a ewe, a lamb, as well as a chicken in a barn. The barn is likely located in Barbizon, a village in the Forest of Fontainebleau that had become the center of French landscape painting in the mid 19th century. Jacque moved there in 1848 to escape a cholera outbreak in Paris. In addition to owning a house and studio in the village, he acquired a fair amount of land. Size: 10" L x 7.875" W (25.4 cm x 20 cm) Size (frame): 14" L x 12" W (35.6 cm x 30.5 cm)
According to the Nelson Atkins Museum, "Jacque's body of animalier imagery was diverse. He produced numerous images of cows and their cowherds, including The Watering Place, acquired by the French State in 1849 (Musee des Beaux-Arts d'Angers). He also painted many views of hens, chickens, and roosters and knew these animals well; he even wrote a book on the rearing of hens, Le Poulailler: Monographie des Poules Indigenes et Exotiques (The Henhouse: Monograph on Native and Exotic Poultry) (1858). Jacque was, however, particularly known as a painter of sheep. His friend and biographer, Jules Claretie, noted, 'Around 1855, and after having fought hard to have his 'sheep' accepted, Charles Jacque was as though penned in with them, and the amateurs who love that artists should specialize and who, God knows, are as sheep-like as sheep, compelled him to remain true to this kind of animal.6 Jacque thus carefully studied sheep anatomy, making numerous drawings of the ovine form. The Barbizon insider Georges Gassies remembered Jacque's study, from the early 1850s onward, of the flock of sheep in the large farm belonging to the mayor of Chailly, Benoni Bellon: 'The farmer at that time, who called himself Benoni, . . . willingly welcomed artists and was friendly with them, letting them set up their easels in every corner of the large farm, the buildings of which are on the village outskirts, adjoining the beautiful plain of Barbizon. . . . He [Jacque] also used this sheepfold for many of his paintings." (source: Catalogue of French Paintings on Nelson Atkins website)
Provenance: private Salt Lake City, Utah, USA collection
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#197720
- Condition: Signed with pigment at lower left. Expected age wear with normal darkening and a few minor scuffs. No inpainting. X-ray florescence testing revealed pigments are consistent with the period.
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