Oil Painting, 'Landscape at Écouen, near Paris', Émile Charles Lambinet, 1858

Woodland scene: a cottage on a river bank in a sunny day with a female figure bending over the edge of a path; cloudy sky.

Bequeathed by John Forster

Bequeathed by John Forster, 1876

Historical significance: This work is a fine example of Lambinet's landscape paintings. It depicts a cottage on a river bank in the region of Ecouen, France. Particularly interesting is the rendering of light that mirrors in the river surface and filters through the foliage. The subject matter and the earthen palette are reminiscent of the Barbizon school, with which Lambinet is often associated, but also recalls the art of Daubigny especially in the refined brushwork. The cool earthen palette enlivened by a touch a red in the figure's garment probably derived from Corot, of whom Lambinet was a pupil.
This painting is typical of the Realist movement that can be in part interpreted as a reaction against the progressive industrialisation of modern society and the dominant academism in the arts. It was probably made directly after the motif, en plein air and perhaps later re-worked in the artist's studio as some Realist painters used to do. Unfortunately very little is known about both Lambinet's life and working practice.
In this painting can be seen both influence of Horace Vernet in the neat and detailed depiction of nature and of Corot whose study of light in scenes of the rural everyday life deeply influenced his pupil.
Lambinet painted similar compositions in the 1850s such as A Path, Musée Lambinet, Versailles and Landscape with fishers, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dole.
The painting was acquired from a London gallery in the same year of its execution. The important number of such landscapes in the collection reflects the taste of 19th-century British collectors for these pictures.

19th-century French art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.

Emile-Charles Lambinet (1815-1877) was born in Versailles, near Paris and studied under Michel-Martin Drolling (1786-1853), Antoine-Felix Boisselier (1790-1857) and Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and then under Camille Corot (1796-1875). He exhibited at the Salon between 1833 and 1876 and was awarded medals in 1843, 1853 and 1857. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1867.

This painting is a fine example of Lambinet's landscape paintings. It shows a cottage on a river bank in the region of Ecouen, north of Paris. The detailed brushwork, subject matter and rendering of light are characteristic of the Realist movement, which focused on an objective depiction of nature. The Barbizon school with which Lambinet is often associated can be interpreted as a branch of Realism.

F.17