Physical description
Studies of animal seen from profile and the back in diverse positions: cows, oxen, sheep and a donkey.
Place of Origin
Bruges, Belgium (probably, painted)
Paris, France (possibly, painted)
Date
Late 18th century (painted)
Artist/maker
Legillon, Jean François, born 1739 - died 1797 (painters (artists))
Materials and Techniques
Oil on paper laid on canvas
Dimensions
Height: 34 cm estimate, Width: 24.7 cm estimate, Weight: 4 kg with frame, Height: 54 cm frame, Width: 44.7 cm frame
Object history note
Possibly in the collection of Alexander Constantine Ionides, father of Constantine Alexander Ionides. Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides, 1900
Historical significance: Jean-François Legillon made a few studies of full-length animals and human figures after life, drawn in different positions that he would reused in his landscape paintings. Comparable studies of cows are in the Steinmetzkabinet, Bruges. He specialised in landscape paintings with cattle, such as Landscape with barn and cattle, dated ca. 1776, in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges. He hardly used to include human figures in his compositions, following thus the style of the Dutch Golden Age's painters Paulus Potter and Karel Dujardin.
In addition to these full-length studies, he also executed more detailed studies such as the Head of a goat and Head of a donkey, both in the Steinmetzkabinet, Bruges.
The representation of cows was important in the whole Netherlands as they were a symbol of national pride, especially after the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) when the Netherlands finally gained their independence from the Spanish dominion. This iconographic representation extended well into the 19th century during which Netherlandish artists, even those who belonged to The Hague School (1870-1890), considered as a vehicle for a new artistic approach, continued to depict them as the main subject of their works.
Historical context note
Italianates landscapes were particularly praised during the 17th century up to the early 19th century. The term conventionally refers to the school of Dutch and Flemish painters and draughtsmen who were active in Rome for more than a hundred years, starting from the early 17th century. These artists produced mainly pastoral subjects bathed in warm southern light, set in an Italian, or specifically Roman, landscape. They formed in Rome a proper association called the Schildersbent, which flourished from ca. 1620 to 1720 and was notorious for its opposition to the Roman Accademia di S Luca.The term is also often applied, but wrongly, to artists who never left the northern Netherlands but who worked primarily in an Italianate style. Eighteenth-century collectors, especially French ones, preferred a view by Nicolaes Berchem (ca.1620-1683) or Jan Both (ca.1610-1652) to a scene of the Dutch country side by Jacob van Ruisdael (ca.1628-1682) for instance. The taste for the Italianates continued undiminished into the 19th century. An early voice denouncing these artists was that of John Constable (1776-1837) and at the end of the century Italianates had lost favour oartly because of the rise of Impressionism and the appreciation of the Dutch national school of landscape expounded by such eminent critics as Wilhem von Bode, E.W. Moes and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot.
Descriptive line
Oil painting, 'Studies of Animals', Jean François Legillon, late 18th century
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
C.M. Kauffmann, Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 168, cat. no. 207.
The following is the full text of the entry:
Jean Francois LEGILLON (1739-97)
Flemish (Bruges) School
Born at Bruges, he was a pupil of J.-B. Decamps in Rouen (1760-62). He painted landscapes, interiors and animal subjects and worked mainly in Bruges and Paris.
Ascribed to Jean Francois LEGILLON
207
STUDIES OF ANIMALS: COWS AND OXEN, SHEEP AND A DONKEY
On paper laid down on canvas
13 3/8 x 9 ¾ (34 x 24.7)
Ionides Bequest
CAI.82
Originally catalogued as 'possibly by Potter' (Long, 1925), the attribution to Legillon was due to M. Albert Visart de Bocarme of Bruges (oral opinion, 1929), who drew attention to similar works by Legillon in the Gruuthuse at Bruges. Another comparable study of animals was in the exhibition Old Master paintings, Brian Koetser Gallery, 1966, no. 5, repr.
Prov. Constantine Alexander Ionides; bequeathed to the Museum in 1900.
Lit. Long, Cat. Ionides Coll, 1925, p. 47.
B.S. Long, Catalogue of the Constantine Alexander Ionides collection. Vol. 1, Paintings in oil, tempera and water-colour, together with certain of the drawings, London, 1925, p. 47.
Materials
Paper; Oil paint; Canvas
Techniques
Oil painting
Subjects depicted
Sheep; Cows; Oxen; Donkeys
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
