Page 28 - Theodore Rousseau: A Magnificent Obsession

Fig. 13 - La Ferme dans Les Landes - Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. (Photo Ole Haupt)

three actual oak trees in Les Landes16, and that the artist combined two different vernacular
structures - one of which is an exaggeration of what might have existed in context - solely as a
means of enhancing the perspective and thrust of his composition.

℘℘℘

Despite having already sold the painting, Rousseau did not allow Hartmann to take
possession of La Ferme in 1852, and in fact, it was only in 1855 that he released Le Marais
dans les Landes to his patron. Hartmann could hardly have known that Le Marais was to be the only
painting by Rousseau that he was ever to obtain physically during the artist’s lifetime. Rousseau
kept La Ferme throughout the 1850s where it was seen and remembered by one of the artist’s
pupils of these years, Ludovic Letrône, who described it as giving the effect of light at three
o’clock in the afternoon.17 Indeed he kept the painting throughout his lifetime, and continued
to work on it while keeping close contact with Hartmann, who eagerly waited in vain for its

15 Ibid., fig. 26.This sketch was likely one of 25 works used to guarantee a loan from Hartmann to Rousseau in the early
1860s and later probably entered the collection of the former. It was probably lot 19 (Etude pour le tableau: ‘La Ferme’ FF
275) in Hartmann’s 1881 sale, see ibid, p. 687, note 16.
16 Numerous oil sketches and pen and pencil studies attest to Rousseau’s interest in tree groupings.
17 Loc cit., under note 18.

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