Delacroix and the writer Aurore Dudevant, better known by her pseudonym, George Sand, first met in November 1834, when François Buloz, editor-in-chief of La revue des deux mondes, asked the artist to paint a portrait of the writer to illustrate his essays.3 The encounter began a spirited friendship, which lasted until the painter’s death in 1863. Delacroix spent much time painting and drawing in the garden of Sand’s family home and in the surrounding countryside, recording lush, dense landscapes around the village of Nohant, in the central region of Berry, France. He was there on three separate instances during the 1840s: in June 1842, July 1843, and August 1846.4 These trips were highly enjoyable for the artist. His time spent in Nohant offered a welcome respite from his busy Parisian life. Delacroix found inspiration in the property’s cultivated gardens and adjacent untamed woods, prompting several plant and flower studies as well as landscape drawings.5 As the artist wrote to his friend Jean-Baptiste Pierret, “The location is very pleasant, and the hosts could not be more eager to please me. When not with the others for dinner, lunch, playing billiards or going for a walk, I stay in my room, reading, or eating on my sofa. At times, through the window that opens onto the garden come wafts of music by Chopin who is working next door; it mingles with the song of the nightingales and the smell of roses.”6
This graphite drawing by Delacroix is one of his pure landscapes.7 It is a study for a well-executed watercolor dating to 1842–46 of the forest at Sand’s estate in Nohant (fig. 52.1). It showcases Delacroix’s dexterity with the pencil. To indicate the assortment of lush trees and plants set within the landscape without the use of color, the artist varied his mark-making with hatching, crosshatching, diagonal lines, scribbles, and blotches. He reinforced the contours of trees and bushes as well as darkened passages with stronger pressure from the pencil. The gradations of shade indicate how the light filters through the trees and brush and what remains in shadow. Delacroix’s adroitness with the pencil to produce lush natural surroundings can be seen in a few sheets in two sketchbooks in the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.8 Delacroix’s interest in depicting Sand’s estate and the adjacent woodland also resulted in oil paintings, graphite and ink drawings, and watercolors.9
Delacroix’s interest in the subject of landscape was certainly piqued by British artists, and he admired John Constable’s landscapes and his naturalism, which were lauded for their emotive effects. Constable had success at the Paris Salon exhibition of 1824 in the Louvre.10 The Cercle de l’Union for French and English artists was established that same year, and in 1825 Delacroix traveled to England.11 Delacroix commented that the “British were admirable painters in the smaller dimensions.”12 The connected web between the British and French landscape traditions continued through the 1830s and through subsequent generations of artists. —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
3. See André Joubin, “L’amitié de George Sand et d’Eugène Delacroix,” Revue des Deux Mondes (1829–1971) 21, no. 4 (June 15, 1934): 833, and Arlette Sérullaz, “Amie et Soeur Bien Chére . . . ,” in George Sand: Une nature d’artiste, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée de la Vie Romantique, 2004), 75.
4. See Colta Feller Ives, Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018), 79–81.
5. See Eugène Delacroix, Bouquet de fleurs dans un vase et fruits places sure une table, 1843, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
6. See Letter to J.-B. Pierret, June 7, 1842, in Correspondance générale d’Eugène Delacroix, vol. 2 (Paris: Plon, 1936), 108.
7. Alfred Sensier was a well-known French art critic, collector, and author who wrote notably on Jean-François Millet. He bought lot 590 from the Delacroix Atelier Sale for thirty-one francs. These twenty-four drawings and watercolors are listed in Alfred Robaut and Ernest Chesneau, L’oeuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix, peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies, 1813–1863 (Paris: Charavay Fréres Éditeurs, 1885), cat. 1713 (as Souvenirs de Nohant, 1842–43).
8. Thanks to Jill Newhouse for initial research on this drawing. Eugène Delacroix, Normandy Sketchbook, 1829, Metropolitan Museum of Art, promised gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in memory of Arthur G. Cohen; Eugène Delacroix, Landscape, from Othello Sketchbook, 1855, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, promised gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in memory of Patricia Rosenwald; see Dunn, Ives, and Bantz, eds., Delcroix Drawings, 25–26.
9. See Eugène Delacroix, George Sand’s Garden at Nohant, c. 1842–43, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, purchase, Dikran G. Kelekian Gift, 1922 [22.27.4]; Delacroix, The Edge of a Wood at Nohant, c. 1842/43, watercolor, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, gift of John S. Thacher [1985.16.2]; Delacroix, Chemin éclairé dans un sous-bois, no date, brush and brown wash, Musée du Louvre, Paris [RF 9774]; Delacroix, Vue du parc de Nohant “Le vieux carré,” c. 1864, graphite on laid paper, Musée de la Vie Romantique, Paris [D.89.230], see Arlette Sèrullaz, “Les Delacroix de George Sand,” in George Sand: Une nature d’artiste, exh. cat. (Paris: Musée de la Vie Romantique, 2004), 83, pl. 86; Delacroix, View Presumed to Be of the Park at Nohant, c. 1842–46, ink and brown wash on paper, Karen B. Cohen Collection, New York, see Barthélemy Jobert, Christophe Leribault, Itai Kovacs, and Colta Ives, Une passion pour Delacroix: La collection Karen B. Cohen (Paris: Musée du Louvre Editions, 2009), 138, cat. 100. In addition to these pure landscapes, the background of The Education of the Virgin, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1845, and the preparatory study for the painting likewise portray the verdant park surrounding George Sand’s home. See Delacroix, The Education of the Virgin, 1842, oil on canvas, Musée Delacroix, Paris [MD 2003-8], and Delacroix, Landscape Study for The Education of the Virgin, 1853, graphite on paper, Departement des Arts Graphiques, Musée du Louvre [RF9494].
10. More than thirty works by English artists were exhibited in this salon, and a special room was reserved for watercolors. Among the works were those by John Constable, Thomas Lawrence, Copley Fielding, Thales Fielding, John Varley, and Baron Taylor, and Richard Parkes Bonington exhibited three marine paintings. Stendhal, an Anglophile and progressive critic, praised Constable’s work in the Salon of 1824 and called his landscapes “delicious” and the “very mirror of nature.” See H. Isherwood Kay, “Hay Wain,” Burlington Magazine 62, no. 363 (June 1933): 281–89.
11. See Stephen Duffy, “French Artists and the Meyrick Armoury,” Burlington Magazine 151, no. 1274 (May 2009): 286.
Study of a Forest
Bean, Jacob, Lee Johnson, and William M. Griswold. Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863): Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from North American Collections. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991.
Delacroix, Eugène. Correspondance générale d’Eugène Delacroix. 8 vols. Paris: Plon, 1936–38.
Delteil, Loys. Delacroix: The Graphic Work: A Catalogue Raisonné. Translated and revised by Susan Strauber. San Francisco: Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1997.
Dunn, Ashley, Colta Ives, and Jennifer Bantz, eds. Delcroix Drawings: The Karen B. Cohen Collection. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018.
Ives, Colta Feller. Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018.
Jobert, Barthélemy, Christophe Leribault, Itai Kovacs, and Colta Ives. Une passion pour Delacroix: La collection Karen B. Cohen. Paris: Musée du Louvre Editions, 2009.
Johnson, Lee. The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue. 6 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981–89.
Joubin, André. “L’amitié de George Sand et d’Eugène Delacroix.” Revue des Deux Mondes (1829–1971) 21, no. 4 (June 15, 1934): 832–65.
Moreau, Adolphe. E. Delacroix et son oeuvre, avec des gravures en fac-similé des planches originales les plus rares. Paris: Libraire des Bibliophiles, 1873.
Musées Nationaux, Palais du Louvre. Exposition Eugène Delacroix. Paris: Musées Nationaux, Palais du Louvre, 1930.
Robaut, Alfred, and Ernest Chesneau. L’oeuvre complet de Eugène Delacroix, peintures, dessins, gravures, lithographies 1813–1863. Paris: Charavay Fréres Éditeurs, 1885.
Sérullaz, Arlette. “Les Delacroix de George Sand.” In George Sand: Une nature d’artiste, 832–65. Exh. cat. Paris: Musée de la Vie Romantique 2004.
Stuffman, Margret. Eugène Delacroix: Themen und Variationen, Arbeiten auf Papier. Exh. cat. Frankfurt: Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, 1987.
Wright, Beth Segal. The Cambridge Companion to Delacroix. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
ProvenanceEstate of artist; [Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Delacroix Atelier Sale, February 22–27, 1864, possibly part of lot 590 (described as “drawings and watercolors made in Nohant in 1842 and 1843”) (L. 838a)]; possibly sold to Alfred Sensier (1815–1877); possibly [his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 11–12, 1877, lot 367 (under Vingt-six croquis de paysages)]; [sale, SVV Denis Herbette Sárl, Doullens, France, December 12, 2021, lot unknown]; private collection, France; purchased by [Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York, by December 2022]; purchased by MFAH, 2023.Comparative Images
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has made every effort to contact all copyright holders for images and objects reproduced in this online catalogue. If proper acknowledgment has not been made, please contact the Museum.