Pollard Willow (after 1804): Art, History and Details

Pollard Willow (after 1804) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pierre Jean Boquet (French, 1751–1817).

The work and its context

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

Little is known about Boquet's life, and his artistic origins remain obscure. His style and technique suggest that he received formal training, but where and with whom is unclear. An inscription on a painting attributed to Boquet implies that he spent time in Rome, where he would have seen works by 17th-century French artists such as Claude Lorrain. This may explain the gentle, bucolic atmosphere and the warm, golden light in Pollard Willow, characteristics of which recall the paintings of Lorrain and his contemporaries. The severe pruning or pollarding of trees, especially willows, was a common practice before the Industrial Revolution (about 1750–1850). The procedure allowed the tree to produce large numbers of shoots, which were used in basketry, fence construction, and as fodder for farm animals.

Object facts

• Title: Pollard Willow
• Date: after 1804
• Creator attribution: Pierre Jean Boquet (French, 1751–1817)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on paper, mounted on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 29.6 x 26.8 cm (11 5/8 x 10 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1980.237

Collection credit

Bequest of Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163–219.
• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.

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.