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Constant Troyon
French, 1810–1865
Oxen Plowing
1860
Troyon’s painting shows a young plowman steering six large oxen ahead of a gathering storm. This work is a scaled-down version of a much larger painting that earned lavish praise when the artist exhibited it at the Universal Exposition of 1855 in Paris. Prolific and adept at disseminating his work, Troyon had a long and successful career as a painter of country scenes.
Image Caption
Constant Troyon, Oxen Plowing, 1860, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.56
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
38 1/4 x 51 1/8 in. (97.2 x 129.8 cm)
Object Number
1955.56
Acquisition
Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status
Off View
Select Bibliography
Champlin, J. H., Jr., ed. Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Boime, Albert. "The Case of Rosa Bonheur: Why Should a Woman Want to be More Like a Man?". Art History, 4:4. (Dec. 1981).:pp. 384-409. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.
Provenance
Probably Frederic Boucheron, Paris (by 1883–d. 1902); probably Louis Boucheron, his son, by descent (1902–35, his sale, Galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris, 28 May 1935, no. 10, ill., as Boeufs au labour, sold to Knoedler);¹ [Knoedler, Paris, sold to Clark, probably June 1935]; Robert Sterling Clark (1935–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.
1. In the sale catalogue, the collection is labeled only as “appartenant a Monsieur X .” The SCIPIO database identifies the seller as Boucheron, the jeweler.