The Fisherman (Le Pêcheur) (c. 1840–45): Art, History and Details

The Fisherman (Le Pêcheur) (c. 1840–45) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812–1867).

The work and its context

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

The quintessential Barbizon artist, Rousseau was romantically in love with nature. He spent the better part of twenty years living in near poverty in a cottage in the village of Barbizon, painting in a converted barn. The Fisherman is an early drawing by the artist, probably executed on the outskirts of Paris. The tree, the foreground grasses and rocks, and the humble form of the fisherman at rest are rendered with great specificity. Rousseau thought of each tree in the Forest of Fontainebleau as being almost human, each marked by a particular fate and struggle.

Object facts

• Title: The Fisherman (Le Pêcheur)
• Date: c. 1840–45
• Creator attribution: Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812–1867)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink and brush, gray and black wash (scratched away in places), with touches of pink watercolor
• Dimensions: Sheet: 20.9 x 28 cm (8 1/4 x 11 in.); Secondary Support: 20.9 x 28 cm (8 1/4 x 11 in.); Tertiary Support: 29.6 x 37.9 cm (11 5/8 x 14 15/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1980.18

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

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.
• Allan, Scott and Édouard Kopp. Unruly Nature: The Landscapes of Théodore Rousseau. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2016.

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.