The Sheepfold
1857
Medium
Oil on wood
Dimensions
18 1/8 x 36 1/8 in. (46 x 91.8 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1897
Accession Number
97.40
Tags
Art Historical Context
Charles Jacque's *The Sheepfold* (7) captures the quiet rhythms of rural French life in a masterful oil on wood panel, measuring 18 1/8 x 36 1/8 inches. Depicting farmers tending to sheep within a pastoral enclosure, with chickens scattered nearby, the scene evokes the hardworking harmony of 19th-century countryside existence. The elongated format draws the eye across the composition, emphasizing the daily labor of herding and farm work. As a key in the Barbizon School Jacque specialized in animalier painting—realistic portrayals of livestock and rural scenes—influenced by his contemporaries ...
About the Artist
Charles Jacque
Charles-Émile Jacque (1813–1894) was a pioneering French painter, engraver, and illustrator whose career bridged the worlds of printmaking and pastoral painting. Born in Paris amid a difficult childhood, he apprenticed at age seventeen to a map engraver, mastering drypoint technique and producing his first etching in 1830—a copy of a head after Rembrandt. After serving seven years in the French Ar...