The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

A Woman from the Arctic

1826

Léon Cogniet

(French, 1794–1880)
France, 19th century
oil on fabric
Framed: 62.9 x 57.2 x 8.9 cm (24 3/4 x 22 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.); Unframed: 42.5 x 36.5 cm (16 3/4 x 14 3/8 in.)
Bequest of Noah L. Butkin 1980.249
Location: Not on view

Description

When this painting was shown in an 1826 exhibition, the accompanying catalogue stated that it was "painted after nature." Although Léon Cogniet never traveled to North America, he may have encountered a native person from the Arctic. In 1820, an American sea captain, Samuel Hadlock, met two Inuit from Labrador, George Niakungitok and Mary Coonahnik, who accompanied Hadlock on a tour of America and Europe. The tour, an early example of a commercial show presenting people from lesser-known parts of the world to paying European audiences, concluded in Paris in 1826. The show also included a panoramic view of Baffin Bay (located between northeast Canada and Greenland) that may have inspired the cloudy sky and ice formations in Cogniet's painting.
  • Offered by Cogniet to Baron Gros in 1826. His sale, Paris, 23 November 1835 (lot 125), Femme du pays des Esquimaux, ouvrage exposé au salon du Louvre en 1827, for ff 715 to Dubois. Mme Pétrus Martin, Paris. Her collection sale, Paris, Drouot, 6-7 February 1902 (lot 10), Femme du pays des Esquimaux, signé à gauche, 45 x 36 cm, ff 42. (The CMA painting is signed on the right and the Douwes version is signed on the left, so this auction catalogue entry may refer to that painting.) Shepherd Gallery, New York. Bought in August 1976 by Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland. Bequeathed to the CMA in 1980.
  • Talbot, William S. "Cogniet and Vernet at the Villa Medici." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 5 (1980): 135-49. Reproduced & Mentioned: p. 137 www.jstor.org
    Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 138-140, Vol. I, no. 52
    Noon, Patrick, Stephen Bann, Tate Britain (Gallery), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). Constable to Delacroix : British Art and the French Romantics, 1820-1840. London: Tate, 2003. Cat nbr 36. p. 92-93.
    Nolan, Dennis. Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018. Reproduced: p. 63; Mentioned: p. 58
  • Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics, 1820-1840. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (June 1-August 31, 2003); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (September 29, 2003-January 4, 2004).
    Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981).
    Paris, Galerie Lebrun. Explication des ouvrages de peinture exposés au profit des grecs (1826), no. 26, Une femme du pays des Esquimaux, peinte d'après nature.
    Paris, Musée Royal des Arts. Salon (1827), no. 211, Femme du pays des Esquimaux (Ce tableau appartient à M. le baron Gros).
  • {{cite web|title=A Woman from the Arctic|url=false|author=Léon Cogniet|year=1826|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.249