II. Trees

11. Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes Toulouse 1750 – 1819 Paris A pivotal figure in the development of landscape painting, Valenciennes effectively elevated its status through his promotion of the paysage historique. In his work as a painter, teacher and author, he advocated that such composed landscapes should be based on the direct study of nature. His (…)
12. Simon Denis Antwerp 1755 – 1813 Naples “One becomes very small and modest when one understands Nature.” The remarkable scale of this tree study evokes the reverence towards nature described by Simon Denis in his undated manuscript preserved in the Fondation Custodia. An early practitioner of plein air painting, the Flemish artist (…)
13. Anonymous French(?), first half of the 19^th century In this anonymous tree study, delicately rendered foliage covers almost the entire surface of the paper, giving it a somewhat decorative feel. It appears to be a cropped view of the top of a tree, painted from a high vantage point. The artist could have sketched it while perched on a branch.
14. Johan Christian Dahl Bergen 1788 – 1857 Dresden The son of a fisherman, Dahl rose from humble beginnings as a house painter in Bergen to become the first Norwegian artist of international renown. In 1811, he moved to Copenhagen to study at the Academy. There he befriended Eckersberg, who encouraged him to paint out-of-doors, and studied the (…)
15. Robert Léopold Leprince Paris 1800 – 1847 Chartres Robert Léopold Leprince belonged to a family of landscape painters and lithographers. He trained under his father, Anne-Pierre, and his older brother Auguste-Xavier (cat. 145), before becoming the teacher of his younger sibling Gustave (1810–1837). The brothers shared an atelier in Paris at “la (…)
16. Joseph Mallord William Turner London 1775 – 1851 Chelsea Turner was only fourteen when he entered the Royal Academy Schools, and exhibited his first picture the following year. A prolific draughtsman, he amassed over 30,000 drawings and watercolours throughout his long career. He seldom painted in oils out-of-doors, however, arguing that it took up (…)
17. Joseph Mallord William Turner London 1775 – 1851 Chelsea Turner was only fourteen when he entered the Royal Academy Schools, and exhibited his first picture the following year. A prolific draughtsman, he amassed over 30,000 drawings and watercolours throughout his long career. He seldom painted in oils out-of-doors, however, arguing that it took up (…)
18. John Constable East Bergholt 1776 – 1837 London Unlike his contemporary Turner, Constable was an enthusiastic painter of plein air oil sketches. He systematically painted out-of-doors throughout most of his career, capturing both panoramic landscape views and close-up details, such as his exceptional series of cloud studies (cat. 112 and (…)
19. John Constable East Bergholt 1776 – 1837 London Unlike his contemporary Turner, Constable was an enthusiastic painter of plein air oil sketches. He systematically painted out-of-doors throughout most of his career, capturing both panoramic landscape views and close-up details, such as his exceptional series of cloud studies (cat. 112 and (…)
20. Anonymous French, 19^th century This oil on paper study functions as a ‘portrait’ of an individual tree. While the trees in the background are roughly indicated with single brushstrokes in thinned-downed oils, the main protagonist is rendered with painstaking brushwork and great naturalism, with particular attention being paid (…)
21. Achille-Etna Michallon Paris 1796 – 1822 Paris Born into a family of artists, Michallon was a precocious talent. He joined the École des Beaux-Arts in 1810, where he studied perspective under Valenciennes, and first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1812. A decade later, just a month short of his twenty-sixth birthday, the artist succumbed to (…)
22. François Diday, attributed to Geneva 1802 – 1877 Geneva This intriguing study painted on canvas is attributed to François Diday, a pioneer of Swiss landscape painting along with his pupil Alexandre Calame (cat. 43). After his initial training in Geneva, Diday spent a few months in the Paris atelier of Baron Gros in 1823. He then travelled to Italy in (…)
23. Anton Sminck Pitloo Arnhem 1790 – 1837 Naples An inscription on the back of this study identifies it as a work by “Anton Pitloo – Father of the modern Neapolitan school”. Also known as the School of Posilippo, it was not a formal school but a loose group of artists which gathered around Pitloo and his student Giacinto Gigante (1806– 1876). (…)
24. Janus La Cour Thimagard, near Ringkøbing 1837 – 1909 Odder, Denmark A second-generation Eckersberg follower, the Danish landscape painter Janus La Cour was greatly influenced by his friend and mentor P.C. Skovgaard (1817–1875). He joined the Copenhagen Academy in 1857, and received several bursaries that allowed him to travel to France, Switzerland and Italy, (…)
25. Fritz Petzholdt Copenhagen 1805 – 1838 Patras Fritz Petzholdt attended the Academy in Copenhagen between 1824-29. He also took private tuitions from Eckersberg, and was the only one of his pupils to devote himself exclusively to landscape. From 1830, he was mainly active in Italy, where he joined the Danish artists’ colony which had formed (…)
26. Carl Morgenstern Frankfurt-am-Main 1811 – 1893 Frankfurt-am-Main Morgenstern’s view also omits the architectural landmarks of Ariccia, focusing instead on a stretch of ‘untouched’ nature. It was probably painted in the park of the Villa Chigi, a favourite stop for Grand Tourists attracted by its wooded landscape which, according to legend, had been the (…)
27. Friedrich Gauermann Miesenbach 1807 – 1862 Vienna The Austrian landscape and animal painter Friedrich Gauermann received his initial artistic training from his father, Jacob Gauermann (1773–1843), who encouraged him to make studies from nature and copies after the Dutch Old Masters. Gauermann exhibited his first picture at the Academy (…)
28. Anonymous French, 19^th century Unfinished outdoor oil studies are not uncommon. Whether left incomplete intentionally or abandoned due to a simple change of heart or unforeseen meteorological events, they are of particular interest in their deconstruction of an artist’s method. This view of Saint-Cloud was initially sketched (…)
29. Gilles-François Closson, attributed to Liège 1796 – 1842 Liège Painted quickly yet with an assured hand, this study of a dense cluster of trees is attributed to Gilles-François Closson. Characteristically for the artist, a large area of the sheet is left unfinished, which emphasizes that his focus was on a specific range of vision, omitting what is (…)