The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of June 26, 2022

Classical Landscape

1779

Pierre Henri de Valenciennes

(French, 1750-1819)

France, 18th century

Black gouache and brush and gray wash, over black chalk and graphite, heightened with white gouache

Support: Green laid paper

Sheet: 41.3 x 48.3 cm (16 1/4 x 19 in.); Secondary Support: 43.6 x 52.1 cm (17 3/16 x 20 1/2 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1980.91

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The ritual seen here, in which women cut their hair and offer it to a god, is rarely depicted in the visual arts.

Description

The leading landscape painter of the late 18th century, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes was also an important theoretician whose book Elements of Practical Perspective influenced generations of French artists who followed. In the book, the artist described two ways of envisioning nature: "seeing it as it is," and "seeing it as it could be." He preferred the latter, believing that it demanded more of the imagination than merely copying the natural world. The perfection of the setting in this drawing reflects the noble, classical subject: three maidens cutting their hair and offering it on an altar to a river god.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, lower left, in brown ink: Valencienne Fecit / a Rome. 1779 / 1779

Provenance
by 1975-before 1979
(Heim Gallery, London)
by 1979
(Shepherd Gallery, New York)
after 1979-1980
(Jean-Pierre Selz, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1980-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Exhibition of French Drawings: Neo-Classicism. Exh. Cat. London: Heim Gallery, 1975. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 121
Rohowsky, Peter S. Nineteenth Century French and Other Continental Watercolors and Oil Sketches. Exh. Cat. New York: Shepherd Gallery, 1979. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 134
DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned: pp. 120-121, p. 289, no. 46; Reproduced: p. 121
Marlais, Michael, John Varriano, and Wendy M. Watson. Valenciennes, Daubigny, and the Origins of French Landscape Painting. Exh. Cat. South Hadley, MA: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, 2004. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 30
Exhibition history

Nineteenth Century French and Other Continental Watercolors and Oil Sketches. Shepherd Gallery, New York (Winter 1979).

Exhibition of French Drawings: Neo-Classicism. Heim Gallery, London (February 20 - March 27, 1975).

Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 23-July 19, 1981).

French Prints and Drawings in the Age of the Bourbons, 1589-1792. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 25-May 16, 1982).

Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988).

French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

Views and Visions: French Landscape Painting from Classicism to Naturalism. Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, MA (organizer) (September 17-December 12, 2004).

Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.91