Offered by Gregory Redding
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Charles Émile Jacque (Paris 1813 to 1894)
Oil on canvas, signed "Ch. Jacque" lower right
Canvas: 37 x 45 cm
With frame: 53 x 61 cm
A lively barnyard interior scene by the Barbizon painter Charles Émile Jacque, showing a group of hens and a cockerel gathered around a feeding trough beneath a wooden staircase, with a hanging lantern above and a hen perched on the steps in the background. Painted in Jacque's characteristic warm, earthy palette with soft directional light, this composition is typical of the poultry and farmyard subjects for which the artist was celebrated throughout his career, and which established him, alongside Émile van Marcke, as one of the leading French animal painters of the nineteenth century.
Charles Émile Jacque was a founding member of the Barbizon school, settling in the village in 1849 where he lived and worked closely with Jean François Millet. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1867. His farmyard and sheep subjects remain among the most sought after examples of Barbizon animal painting today.
Presented in a fine giltwood frame carved with foliate scrolls and rocaille cartouches, with an old collector's plaque inscribed "Charles Jacque."
Condition: a small, stable puncture to the canvas, visible in a plain area of background away from the principal figures and the signature. It has not been restored and is offered as found. A conservator's opinion suggests this is a straightforward, low risk repair. Otherwise in good, honest untouched condition with an attractive, undisturbed surface.
