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Artist or Maker: Constant Troyon (French, 1810-1865)

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Provenance: with Knoedler & Co., New York.
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, New York, 23 May 1990, lot 25.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

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Notes: Sous les arbres (Under the Trees) was painted probably in 1847 or 1848, in the area around Sézanne in the Champagne region east of Paris. Either painted on the site or worked up from drawings of the motif, Sous les arbres served Troyon as the model for his first significant public commission, a command received from the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Le Havre in 1848.

For the Le Havre commission, Troyon cropped the composition of Sous les arbres along the left side to isolate and emphasize the majestic tree at the center for great trees were a primary organizing focus in Troyon's major pictures of the late 1840s. In place of the woodcutters and haystacks of this original scene, he introduced a large flock of sheep. The Le Havre painting, entitled Troupeau de moutons dans les environs de Sézanne, was exhibited in the Salon of 1849; a smaller variant was included in the exhibition 'Barbizon & L'Ecole de la Nature' (Paris, Brame & Lorenceau and Thomas Agnew and Sons, 1992).

We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for preparing this catalogue note.
Michel Schulman has authenticated this work.