Landscape with Figure and Houses (c. 1891): Art, History and Details

Landscape with Figure and Houses (c. 1891) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Claude-Emile Schuffenecker (French, 1851–1934).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

To record rural landscapes, Emile Schuffenecker often took advantage of recently constructed train lines that facilitated travel outside Paris. Here, he portrayed Meudon, a southwestern suburb. Schuffenecker used easily portable pastel sticks to sketch outdoors, producing studies that he later developed into finished works in his studio. With distinctive vertical marks, he combined complementary colors to increase their intensity, choosing textured brown paper to further this impact. The shimmering result is grounded by massive lichen-covered rocks in the foreground that evoke ancient monumental stones in the area and give the drawing a sense of timelessness.

Object facts

• Title: Landscape with Figure and Houses
• Date: c. 1891
• Creator attribution: Claude-Emile Schuffenecker (French, 1851–1934)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pastel on brown wove paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 63 x 78.5 cm (24 13/16 x 30 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2014.2

A detail from the museum

On the back of this drawing, Emile Schuffenecker noted "Nocturne Espagnol / flute," referencing a specific piece of music that provided inspiration for the work.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Oeuvres sur papier du XVIe au XXe siècle. Paris: Boquet & Marty de Cambiaire, 2013.
• Thea Burns and Philippe Saunier. The Art of the Pastel. New York: Abbeville, 2014.
• 1824-1907: Paintings and Drawings. Exh. Cat. Brussels: Eric Gillis Fine Art, 2015.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.