Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011376About the Artwork
The quintessential Barbizon artist, Rousseau was romantically in love with nature. He spent the better part of twenty years living in near poverty in a cottage in the village of Barbizon, painting in a converted barn. The Fisherman is an early drawing by the artist, probably executed on the outskirts of Paris. The tree, the foreground grasses and rocks, and the humble form of the fisherman at rest are rendered with great specificity. Rousseau thought of each tree in the Forest of Fontainebleau as being almost human, each marked by a particular fate and struggle.
Inscriptions
signed, lower left, in brown ink: TH. Rousseau ; VERSO OF SECONDARY SUPPORT, upper left, in graphite: 2830 [circled] ; upper left, in graphite: Th Rousseau / The Fisherman / id. x. x. ; upper left, in graphite: 52149 ; VERSO OF TERTIARY SUPPORT, upper right, in black fiber-tipped pen: D 19 [sideways]
Provenance
[Schaeffer Galleries, New York]
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981). The Graphic Art of the Barbizon School. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 17-May 17, 1987). French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995). Nature Sublime: Landscapes from the 19th Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 15-November 14, 2004). Unruly Nature: The Landscapes of Théodore Rousseau. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (organizer) (June 21-September 11, 2016).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812–1867)
- Date
- c. 1840–45
- Medium
- pen and brown ink and brush, gray and black wash (scratched away in places), with touches of pink watercolor
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 20.9 x 28 cm (8 1/4 x 11 in.); Secondary Support: 20.9 x 28 cm (8 1/4 x 11 in.); Tertiary Support: 29.6 x 37.9 cm (11 5/8 x 14 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1980.18
More by Théodore Rousseau in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011376
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