Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 149. Léon Fleury, attributed to Paris 1804 – 1858 Paris Landscape with a Ruined Abbey A decade ago, this view of a ruined abbey appeared in a sale as the work of an unknown artist in the circle of Corot, and it is now attributed to Léon Fleury. There are indeed a lot of similarities in the technique and style of the two artists, and their oil sketches were often confused by contemporaries. They had met as students in the atelier of Bertin, and Fleury joined Corot in Italy in 1827. They went on sketching excursions together in the campagna, and remained lifelong friends after their return to France. The ruins could represent the Abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay, in the forest of Fontainebleau.1 The treatment of the foreground is rather sketchy, but the picture as a whole is carefully composed and the delicately illuminated repoussoir reveals the artist’s neoclassical training. 1We would like to thank Hildegarde Monnot for this identification.
A decade ago, this view of a ruined abbey appeared in a sale as the work of an unknown artist in the circle of Corot, and it is now attributed to Léon Fleury. There are indeed a lot of similarities in the technique and style of the two artists, and their oil sketches were often confused by contemporaries. They had met as students in the atelier of Bertin, and Fleury joined Corot in Italy in 1827. They went on sketching excursions together in the campagna, and remained lifelong friends after their return to France. The ruins could represent the Abbey of Vaux-de-Cernay, in the forest of Fontainebleau.1 The treatment of the foreground is rather sketchy, but the picture as a whole is carefully composed and the delicately illuminated repoussoir reveals the artist’s neoclassical training. 1We would like to thank Hildegarde Monnot for this identification.