Study of a Birch Tree, Barbizon

About the Artwork

During his brief career in photography, Famin produced photographic studies of varied motifs, including figures, animals, and elements of landscape, from which young artists learned by copying and seasoned professionals borrowed for their studio compositions. Like an Impressionist painting, this isolated scene of impressive birch trees in the Barbizon forest is animated by a sparkling, dissolving light.

Inscriptions

Written in negative: "10[rest cut off]"; in pencil on recto of mount: "101"

Provenance

Serge Kahou, France

Exhibition history

Drawn with Light: Pioneering French Photography from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 26-June 16, 2005). France at the Dawn of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 24, 2010).

Quick Overview

Artist: Constant Alexandre Famin (French, 1827–1888)
Date: 1860s-1870s
Medium: albumen print from wet collodion negative
Dimensions: Image: 25.9 x 18 cm (10 3/16 x 7 1/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20 x 16 in.)
Type: Photograph
Classification: Photograph
Department: Photography
Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
Accession no.: 1994.93

More by Constant Alexandre Famin in museum collections

Untitled (The Forest of Fontainebleau)
Constant Alexandre Famin
c. 1874 · Photograph
Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of ArtAT-00012941
Hotel Jacques Coeur at Bourges
Constant Alexandre Famin
c. 1865 · Photograph
Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of ArtAT-00013268
[Man in a Forest Landscape]
Constant Alexandre Famin
ca. 1870 · Photograph
Public collection via the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAT-00025434

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.