Charles Jacque 1813-1894

Charles Jacque 1813-1894

Charles Jacque was a primary and influential member of the Barbizon School, or “Men of 1830.” His strong, realistic yet sensitive depiction of shepherds and their flocks form one of the most cohesive and important bodies of work produced by the movement. Born in Paris, Jacque began his training, not in painting but in etching, as an apprentice to a map engraver. In this area, Jacque was unsurpassed among his colleagues in the Barbizon School. After military service, he went to England where he worked as an engraver for the magazine La Charivari. Returning to France after two years abroad, he made his Salon debut in 1833 and regularly contributed paintings every year until 1870. Winning medals for both etching and painting, he was awarded the Legion d’honneur in 1867. During the 1840s, he and his friend Millet moved to the village of Barbizon where they felt they cou1d more realistically portray nature. He was also involved in non-artistic activities, such as land speculation and poultry breeding (about which he wrote a book, Le Poulailler, monographie des poules indigences et exotiques, published in 1848), which kept him from fully devoting his life to art. However, even with his outside interests, Jacques continued to produce a great many works in the two mediums of painting and etching. By 1861 he was given official notice as a painter. Employing a new and more vigorous style helped make him a popular artist with many patrons in the Lowlands, the British Isles and the United States.

Museum Collections:
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Art, Budapest, Hungary; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Great Britain; Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY; Hendrik Willem Mesdag National Museum; Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; Layton Art Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Ball State University Art Gallery, Muncie, IN; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Mary Buie Museum, Oxford, MS; Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Great Britain; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA; John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia, PA; Museum of Quebec, Canada; Meadow Brook Hall, Rochester, MI; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, LA; Southampton Art Gallery, Southampton, Great Britain; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA; Louvre, Paris; Stedelijk, Amsterdam; Museum of Art, Baltimore; Walters Museum, Baltimore; Boston Museum of Fine Art; Muzeul TomaStelian, Bucharest; Cincinnati Museum of Fine Art; Cleveland Museum; Glasgow Museum; The Hague; Minneapolis Museum of Fine Art; Montrial Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Philadelphia Museum; Reims Museum, France; France; Clark Museum, Massachusetts