This work is one of the few paintings by English artists that Percy S. Straus acquired and one of the rare landscapes in this collection. A sticker on the back of the canvas identifies it has having been with Arthur Tooth & Sons, New York, but does not indicate at what date. Straus purchased it together with the portrait of Sir Henry Raeburn (see cat. 43) at the American Art Galleries sale on January 4, 1920, the only works he added to the collection that year. Although the gallery receipt identifies this unsigned and undated work as by John Crome (1768–1821) (sometimes known as Old Crome to distinguish him from his son), this attribution was questioned in 1980 by Miklos Rajnai of the Norwich Center for Research in Norwich, England; recent investigations also cannot support the original attribution. However, the current state of the painting, displaying a very dark picture surface that unfortunately cannot be mitigated through conservation, renders an attribution to a specific member of the Norwich School very difficult.

The landscape, consisting of a path leading between a large stand of trees on the right and a smaller outcropping on the left, is indeed characteristic of the Norwich School, which was founded in 1803 by John Crome, Robert Ladbrooke, Robert Dixon, John Thistle, and Charles Hodgeson as the Norwich Society of Artists.¹ Another major representative, John Sell Cotman, joined three years later. Meeting regularly to draw and discuss art, the members of the society also held annual exhibitions starting in 1805. Norwich distinguished itself from other provincial towns with similar societies by energetically promoting local-born artists, especially painters, who in turn celebrated the town and its environs in their paintings.² Like their colleagues on the Continent, these landscapists were part of the Romantic movement and were deeply indebted to their seventeenth-century Dutch forebears. Crome, in particular, was a great admirer of Meindert Hobbema (1638–1709), who specialized in large-scale wooded landscapes, often including small figures. Crome passed this on to his students and followers, collectively known as the School of John Crome, which included his very talented son, John Berney Crome (1794–1842).

Hobbema’s influence is certainly felt in this work, especially in the massing of trees, their dense foliage becoming more transparent toward the edges of the crowns. The beautifully handled sky, with its roseate hues at the horizon and wonderfully differentiated clouds, serves as a lively foil to the dark trees. The original attribution to John Crome may well have been based on its similarity to his Woodland Landscape (1790–1820), today in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (fig. 49.1). However, it seems closer to works by John Berney Crome, such as his Figures by a Boat at the Water’s Edge (fig. 49.2). Here, not only are there great similarities in the dark earth colors, but also in the group of trees, which display the same white highlights on their trunks and branches, as well as in the rosy light on the horizon. Because of the impaired surface of this panel, a firm attribution will remain difficult, at least until conservation techniques yet to be developed may make it possible to restore it to its original state.

—Helga Kessler Aurisch