Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011452The Oak Tree and the Reed
About the Artwork
The Oak Tree and the Reed illustrates the fable of the same name by the 17th-century French writer Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695). Having disdainfully pitied the reed for bending before the wind, the oak is shown torn from the earth by a terrific north wind. Focusing upon the uprooted oak, Daubigny created a violently expressive treatment of the subject. The bold dappling of lights and darks below is set off by the intense blue of the clouds encroaching upon the land from the left. The diagonal streaks of thin-ly applied gray wash above suggest driving rain.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in brown ink: à mon ami Giacomelli / C Daubigny
Provenance
Probably c. 1873-1904: Hector Giacomelli [1822-1904, L. 1311], Versailles 1905: (Hotel Drouot, H. Giacomelli collection sale, Paris, April 13-15, 1905, no. 71, sold to Giacomelli) 1905-?: Giacomelli ?-1976: François Gosselin, Paris, sold to Shepherd Gallery, New York 1976: (Shepherd Gallery, New York, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH) 1976-2008: Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Cleveland, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Shaker Heights, OH 2008-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Charles François Daubigny (French, 1817–1878)
- Date
- c. 1873
- Medium
- blue, gray, and black wash, and graphite
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 29.3 x 23 cm (11 9/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.357
More by Charles François Daubigny in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011452
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