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View of the Château of Pierrefonds
About the Artwork
This lush landscape shows the château of Pierrefonds in the distance framed by flourishing foliage in the foreground. The picture depicts the château from the same viewpoint as in a painting by Camille Corot (see photo), an artist who significantly influenced Français. (Corot is represented in the exhibition by a charcoal drawing [cat. no. 45] hanging nearby.) Corot's picture of Pierrefonds shows the château in ruins, whereas the pristine condition of the building in Français's view indicates that his drawing dates after the château's extensive restoration by the architect Viollet-le-Duc in 1870.
Inscriptions
verso, center, in graphite: 12 [underlined]; center right, in graphite: Chateau de Pierrefonds / Clisson [crossed out]
Provenance
Estate of the artist (estate stamp [Lugt 944], lower right, in black ink); [Français studio sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris (14-15 March 1898), no. 136 (sold for 275 francs, according to annotated copy in Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles)]. [Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris]; purchased in 1979.
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).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- François-Louis Français (French, 1814–1897)
- Date
- c. 1870
- Medium
- pen and black ink, brush and black and gray wash, and graphite, heightened with white gouache
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 42.2 x 56.2 cm (16 5/8 x 22 1/8 in.); Matted: 54.6 x 67.3 cm (21 1/2 x 26 1/2 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.380
More by Louis Français in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011492
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