Paul-Désiré Trouillebert was, above all, a landscape painter. During his long career, the Parisian-born artist was best known for painting in the style of his teacher, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Indeed, his fame struck when Alexandre Dumas fils, the famous writer, bought one of Trouillebert’s paintings and mistook it for one by Corot. This small still life, however, has none of the ethereal qualities of Trouillebert’s shimmering landscapes. Instead, Trouillebert treats a freshly cut branch of nine plums with all the directness of a formal exercise. The near-perfect roundness of the purple fruit provides a delightful balance to the wavy green leaves that envelop them above and below, while a single horizontal branch provides an anchor to the composition overall.
Details
- Artist Name: Paul-Désiré Trouillebert (French, 1829-1900)
- Title: Still Life with Plums
- Date: 1865-1880
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Dimensions: 6-3/8 x 14-1/4 in. (16.2 x 36.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1979.11.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
(Sale, Champetier de Ribes, Drouot Rive Gauche, 26 May 1977, lot 46).
[Galerie Abels, Cologne, by 1978 - sold 1979 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Franzosische Landschaftsmaler 1850-1950
- Galerie Abels, 1978 to
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1585 p. 424
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