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Farm in the Landes (House of the Garde), painted between 1844 and 1867, by Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau. Oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 39 in. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Clark museum in Mass. acquires Rousseau landscape

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson
Farm in the Landes (House of the Garde), painted between 1844 and 1867, by Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau. Oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 39 in. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Farm in the Landes (House of the Garde), painted between 1844 and 1867, by Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau. Oil on canvas, 25 1/2 x 39 in. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. (AP) – The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has acquired a landscape by a 19th century artist Pierre Etienne Theodore Rousseau, one of the prime examples of the Barbizon School of painting.

The artwork, Farm in the Landes, has until now has been held in private collections and has not been widely exhibited since 1946.

Senior curator Richard Rand says the work shows Rousseau’s “abiding love for rural life and unadorned nature.”

The 25-inch by 39-inch painting, started in 1844 and completed almost 25 years later, depicts a farm in southwestern France. The scene shows a dusty path leading between tall oaks to a farmhouse where a man repairs a wagon wheel, one woman feeds cows and another hangs washing.

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On the Web: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, http://www.clarkart.edu

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AP-ES-11-23-09 1144EST