Jules‐Louis Dupré 1811–1889
NG 2634 
Willows, with a Man Fishing

Sarah Herring, 2019

Extracted from:
Sarah Herring, The Nineteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2019).

1850s

Oil on canvas, 21.7 × 27.1 cm¹

Signed bottom left: Jules Dupré

Support

The canvas is unlined and the stretcher is original. The tacking edges, which are present all round, are covered by the off‐white ground, which strongly suggests that the canvas was cut from a larger primed piece and was probably commercially prepared. There are very small overlaps of paint on the right and bottom edges.

There are five wax seals on the back of the stretcher. One (fig. 1, centre), while very rubbed, has been identified as that of former owner John Waterloo Wilson, which features a rampant wolf with a star between its paws, surrounded by the inscription: ‘Collection John. W. Wilson’. A second seal, with the letters ‘L’ and ‘G’ interlaced within a rectangular surround (fig. 1, bottom), has been identified as that of the Belgian art dealer Léon Gauchez.² The third seal features a decorative pattern surrounding a raised area. The latter two are more detailed, with the fourth (fig. 2, bottom) showing two sets of crossed swords (pointing downwards, with both right‐hand swords clearly held by a hand), one set above the other, and flanked with decorative scrolls. The fifth seal (fig. 2, top) has a shield bearing vertical lines and decorative scrolls to either side, surmounted with a (sea‐)horse’s head.³ The Goupil number ‘27686’ is written in blue crayon, and in blue crayon on the [page 349] [page 350] middle stretcher bar, ‘36’ with ‘26’ beside it, and underneath ‘[?]B.C.’.

Materials and Technique

The canvas was prepared with a double off‐white ground. The lower ground layer consists of a lead white and chalk mixture, whereas the upper layer is predominantly lead white. Extending the relatively expensive lead white pigment with cheaper substances such as chalk was common practice in nineteenth‐century commercial primings, especially in the lower layer of a double ground, which would not be seen on the surface. The sky was painted with two to three layers containing varying quantities of French ultramarine, viridian, cobalt blue, emerald green, yellow earth and Prussian blue, with emerald green, viridian, French ultramarine and cobalt blue in the highlights.⁴ Naples yellow is also present in the creamy yellow colour of the clouds. The green foliage was painted with viridian, red and yellow earth and Prussian blue, and some highlights with yellow earth, viridian, chrome yellow and emerald green.

Medium analysis has identified poppyseed oil as the binder in the paint from the sky and the dark green of the foliage. The green paint has been heat‐bodied.

The picture is generally very thickly painted, although in areas the ground can be seen through the paint surface, for example through the sky close to the upper left‐hand edge. The sky was painted first, with a reserve left for the dense inner branches of the trees. The trees were then painted, with their hearts painted directly onto the ground and the thinner outer branches added on top of the sky. The artist then took up the sky colour again and filled in any gaps where the ground was showing through. While the evidence here contradicts Claretie’s statement that Dupré believed in painting the sky last, as with Corot he held it to be of great importance in a picture: ‘the sky is in front of a tree, in a tree behind a tree, it is everywhere; – the sky, it is the air’.⁵ The trunks are painted in very thick impasto and are highlighted with white, cream and light green paint (fig. 3). The pond is full of highlights and reflections laid on the surface, which originally would have been a dull green. Some of these are laid on horizontally with a dry brush, some vertically, such as the streaks of bright blue to the left and the numerous strokes of green around the water’s edge denoting the reeds. A similar effect is achieved in the grassy plain behind, with lighter and yellowish greens dragged across the initial darker green. The resulting painting surface is extremely textured.

Conservation and Condition

NG 2634 has not been cleaned or restored by the National Gallery at any point. It is generally in good condition, although there is damage in the sky, right of centre, which is covered by darkened retouching. There is an unfilled loss at the upper left edge, as well as other scattered losses along the edges, especially at the lower edge and the top right corner edge. There is some cracking, not prominent, and the even varnish is somewhat yellowed.

Discussion

A pond, or possibly a river (the water extends beyond both left and right edges) is bordered by willows on the far side. A man stands in the water, fishing. Beyond lies a grassy plain with bushes in the distance, and possibly blue hills on the horizon. Despite the overcast sky (but note the intense blue glimpsed at the top), the picture gives the impression of a bright, sunlit day through a myriad of small touches of paint resulting in a jewel‐like surface. In particular the extensive use of white highlights could be the result of Dupré’s study of paintings by John Constable during his trip to England, which took place sometime between 1831 and 1834.

This intimate scene is according to Aubrun a work from the 1850s, a period when, after his break with Théodore Rousseau, Dupré preferred to stay in L’Isle‐Adam, north of Paris in the Ile de France, where he painted a sequence of river scenes and fishermen. Aubrun cites A Fisherman and his Boat at the Edge of a Lake (fig. 4)⁶ as a model for Dupré’s landscapes of the 1850s, both in terms of subject (water, fisherman) and its handling and quality of light. NG 2634 can also be particularly compared with Willows (fig. 5),⁷ in which a hill runs down to the river bank on the left, a flat plain lies to the right, with cottages in the distance, and a cluster of willows is reflected in the water. On the left a tree leans to the right, crossing over an upright trunk directly behind; this grouping also appears at the centre of NG 2634. A further painting that shares its intimate pastoral nature is Watering Place (fig. 6), a peaceful scene with cows in the water and a group of willows on the far bank.⁸

Engravings

(1) Engraving by Théophile Chauvel (1831–1910), in Collection de M. John W. Wilson exposée dans la Galerie du Cercle Artistique et Littéraire de Bruxelles au profit des pauvres de cette ville, Paris [page 352] 1873, p. 152, and again in the Wilson sale catalogue.

(2) Engraving by Emile Florentin Daumont (born 1834) in the Dussol sale catalogue.

Provenance

NG 2634 was possibly in the collection of Duplessis in 1867 (see Exhibitions), perhaps Georges Victor Gratet‐Duplessis (1834–99);⁹ according to the Wilson sale catalogue, the picture was in the collection of Jules Van Praet (1806–1887) of Brussels. It was probably bought from Praet by his friend the art dealer Léon Gauchez (1825–1907); on 26 March 1871 Gauchez sold the painting to John Waterloo Wilson (1815–1883), the first Barbizon painting to enter his collection;¹⁰ his sale, 14 to 16 March 1881, lot 154, bought by Georges Petit for 8,800 francs;¹¹ collection of Jean‐Louis Antoine Dussol (de Cette) (1835–1901); M.D… (Dussol) sale, Paris, 17 March 1884, lot 45, bought by the dealer Auguste Breysse for 10,100 francs;¹² in the collection of Georges Lutz (1835–1901) by 1885; his sale, Paris, 26 and 27 May 1902, lot 60, bought by Boussod, Valadon & Cie for 29,000 francs;¹³ the Goupil number ‘27686’ is on the back of the picture. The provenance given for this number in the Goupil & Cie/Boussod, Valadon & Cie stockbooks is as follows: La Saulaie, bought by Goupil from Paul Chevallier (commissaire priseur at the Lutz sale), 3 June 1902; sold by Goupil on 18 April 1903 to William Marchant (1868–1925), manager from 1898 and owner from 1900 of the Goupil Gallery, the London branch of Boussod, Valadon & Cie;¹⁴ in the collection of banker Edward Hedley Cuthbertson (1862–?1944) of Bushey House, Bushey, Hertfordshire;¹⁵ his sale, London, 21 May 1909, lot 77, bought by Thomas Wallis (1837–1916) for £1,050 (the son of Henry Wallis, of Wallis & Son, or The French Gallery); bought by George Salting (1835–1909) from Wallis in August 1909;¹⁶ Salting Bequest, 1910; for a time at the Tate Gallery; transferred in 1956.

Former Owners: Van Praet, Wilson, Dussol and Lutz

Distinguished historian Jules Van Praet was a minister under Belgian kings Leopold I (1790–1865) and Leopold II (1835–1909). He assembled his collection with the assistance of the dealer Arthur Stevens (1825–1899), brother of the artist Alfred Stevens (1823–1906).¹⁷ Textile manufacturer and distinguished collector John Waterloo Wilson (1815–1883), of English nationality, was born in Brussels and lived for 30 years in Holland. In 1878 he donated 27 pictures (mostly Dutch and Flemish seventeenth‐century) to the city of Brussels, to which was added a sum of 300,000 francs in his will for the purchase of further paintings.¹⁸ Jean‐Louis Antoine Dussol was a merchant in shook (bois merrains) at 58 route de Montpellier, Cette (now Sète), in 1880. When his business got into difficulties he sold his collection in 1884, subsequently forming a more modest collection in later years.¹⁹ Georges Lutz was the owner of a factory making tools for leather tanners and curriers.²⁰

Exhibitions

Possibly Paris 1867b (Groupe I, Oeuvres d’Art, France [236, La Saulée], lent by Duplessis); Brussels 1873 (p. 152 of the catalogue); Paris 1885 (38; Lutz collection); Paris 1889b (327, lent by Lutz);²¹ London 1910a (91, River scene: man fishing); Bristol 1932 (14); London 1932 (138); London 1974b (40); London 2009 (24 in accompanying book).

Literature

Tardieu 1873–4, IV, p. 47; Eudel 1885, pp. 238–9; Davies and Gould 1970, pp. 63–4; Aubrun 1974, no. 233;²² White, Pilc and Kirby 1998, pp. 80–1 and 93; Roy 1999, p. 337; Watson 2016, p. 87.

Notes