Oil painting, 'The Pond', Pierre-Etienne-Théodore Rousseau, 1855

A large flat landscape with a pond from which a few cows are drinking; a little girl looking after them; trees in the background under a wide sunset sky.

Bequeathed by Rev., Chauncey Hare Townshend, 1868

Sale Carlin, Paris, 29 Apr 1872, lot 22; Collection C.H. Townshend; by whom bequeathed to the museum in 1868.

Historical significance: This painting is a fine example of Rousseau's late period and belongs to a phase of prosperity and success. It depicts a flat landscape with a few trees growing by a pond. The landscape here does not correspond to a depiction of the Landes region in France, which is dominated by large dunes and forests of conifers. The cool palette, more finished execution of the trees and figures, and shimmering sunset light is reminiscent of the art of the 17th-century Dutch landscape painters.
This painting was probably not made in plein-air but executed in the artist's studio. A few similar compositions date from the same period and show the same technical approach as in the present painting (See The Pond, Metropolitan Museum, New York - Inv. 1975.1.201 and pond with cows Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow - Inv. 1090).
Rousseau was greatly influenced by the Dutch painters, especially Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682) and Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), of whom he bought a painting jointly with Jean-François Millet. Rousseau also owned some 50 prints of Dutch paintings, including copies of works by Jacob van Ruisdael. Rousseau improved his knowledge of Dutch art by copying Adriaen van de Velde (1636-1672) and Karel Dujardin's (1626-1678) paintings in the Louvre.

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.

Previously entitled 'A View in the Landes (near Bordeaux)'

Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867) was born in Paris where he trained with his cousin, the landscape painter Alexandre Pau de Saint-Martin (1782–1850), and subsequently with Joseph Rémond (1795–1875). In spite of progressively emerging as the leader of the Barbizon school, Rousseau was systematically excluded from the Paris Salon between 1836 and 1841. Between the revolution of 1848 and the early 1860s, Rousseau enjoyed a short period of prosperity with official commissions and was eventually made Officer of the Légion d’honneur in 1867, a few months before he died.

This painting is a fine example of Rousseau’s late period when he turned to more finished compositions reminiscent of the 17th-century Dutch landscape painting. This painting departs therefore from his most famous free and broad manner associated with the school of Barbizon. It belongs however to his most productive and successful phase, which began after the revolution of 1848 and ended in the early 1860s.

1541-1869