Study for “In the Woods, Evening” (1892–94): Art, History and Details

Study for “In the Woods, Evening” (1892–94) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alexandre Séon (French, 1855–1917).

The work and its context

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

In this drawing of nymphs holding lyres, Alexandre Séon hoped to depict, in his words, “the spirit of the forest.” He was inspired by fairy-tales he heard as a child about the woods near the remote village where he grew up. By applying colored pencils to a roughly textured sheet of paper, Séon evoked the hazy tones of twilight and gave the sheet a dreamlike tenor.

Object facts

• Title: Study for “In the Woods, Evening”
• Date: 1892–94
• Creator attribution: Alexandre Séon (French, 1855–1917)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: colored pencils on beige laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 35.3 x 23 cm (13 7/8 x 9 1/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2019.77

A detail from the museum

This drawing relates to a painting that was exhibited to critical acclaim at the 1894 Société nationale des Beaux-Arts—an important avant-garde exhibition—but is lost today.

Collection credit

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bouyer, Raymond. “Le Bilan des deux salons.” L’Ermitage 5 (1894).
• Exposition Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Catalogue Illustré des ouvrages…exposés au Champ-de-Mars. Paris: Georges Petit, 1894.
• Malterre, Félix. “Salon du Champ de Mars.” Nouvelle revue international 26 (1894)

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.