Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 56. Eugène Isabey Paris 1803 – 1886 Montévrain, Seine-et-Marne Rocks at Cran Aux Œufs near Calais, 1832 Inscribed at the lower left, Cran aux Œufs is a beach about 30 km west of Calais. The untamed beauty of the Normandy coast was particularly appealing to painters of Romantic landscapes, and the region had been a rendezvous spot for artists from both sides of the English Channel since the late eighteenth century. From the 1820s, Isabey made regular visits to the area, working alongside Bonington (cat. 52) and Auguste-Xavier Leprince (cat. 145) among others. By the 1830s Isabey had become a central figure for French landscape painters, and encouraged his students to work outdoors in their native country, shifting the focus away from the idealised Italian Campagna. This study, painted in August 1832, presents an unembellished view of a rugged sea cliff silhouetted against a dull sky. Painted quickly with brush and palette knife, it is richly textured with thick impasto. A stamp on the verso, with the name and address of the shop where the sketch on paper was mounted onto canvas, indicates that this must have been done before 1843, showing an early concern for the preservation of this sheet.
Inscribed at the lower left, Cran aux Œufs is a beach about 30 km west of Calais. The untamed beauty of the Normandy coast was particularly appealing to painters of Romantic landscapes, and the region had been a rendezvous spot for artists from both sides of the English Channel since the late eighteenth century. From the 1820s, Isabey made regular visits to the area, working alongside Bonington (cat. 52) and Auguste-Xavier Leprince (cat. 145) among others. By the 1830s Isabey had become a central figure for French landscape painters, and encouraged his students to work outdoors in their native country, shifting the focus away from the idealised Italian Campagna. This study, painted in August 1832, presents an unembellished view of a rugged sea cliff silhouetted against a dull sky. Painted quickly with brush and palette knife, it is richly textured with thick impasto. A stamp on the verso, with the name and address of the shop where the sketch on paper was mounted onto canvas, indicates that this must have been done before 1843, showing an early concern for the preservation of this sheet.