Three Fishermen Along the Banks of a River at the Edge of a Forest (1868): Art, History and Details

Three Fishermen Along the Banks of a River at the Edge of a Forest (1868) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Adolphe Appian (French, 1818–1898).

The work and its context

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

Adolphe Appian was renowned during the 19th century for his mastery of charcoal drawing. He specialized in large-scale landscapes depicting Lyon, his native region in southeastern France, and focused on what he termed “private little corners” rather than grandiose views. This drawing is one of several in which Appian depicted the winding Rhône River and the dense trees and large boulders that surrounded it. Two small fishermen give a sense of scale and draw the viewer into the scene. Appian worked with charcoal sticks and powder, wiping the material with cloth, paper, and even breadcrumbs before scratching into the paper’s surface to create an unprecedented tonal range.

Object facts

• Title: Three Fishermen Along the Banks of a River at the Edge of a Forest
• Date: 1868
• Creator attribution: Adolphe Appian (French, 1818–1898)
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: charcoal with stumping and scratching out and touches of white chalk on beige paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 59.4 x 98.5 cm (23 3/8 x 38 3/4 in.); Secondary Support: 60.5 x 99.5 cm (23 13/16 x 39 3/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2021.140

A detail from the museum

Adolphe Appian was so well known for his skillful use of charcoal that many artists wrote to him asking for technical advice.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Master Drawings: Vasari to Bonnard. Exh. cat. New York: W. M. Brady & Co., 2017.
• Dumas, Ann, Leïla Jarbouai, Christopher Lloyd, and Harriet K. Stratis. Impressionists on Paper: Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec. London : Royal Academy of Arts, 2023.
• Salsbury, Britany. Nineteenth-Century French Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Lewes, UK, Cleveland, Ohio: GILES; Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.

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.