Henri Harpignies

This landscape was drawn in the last year of Harpignies' long career: he continued working until his death at age 98. After his death, a caricature in a popular journal depicted him as the “eternal painter” sitting on a stool in the studio with an umbrella and paint kit depicting a plant with a single stem as a tree. That he continued to adhere to working en plein air for so long and was an intimate of Corot meant he was both a revered artist and someone whose work was seen as a relic of the past century. Worked in wash, without a graphite sketch, this sheet continues the same practice found in his gray wash drawings of the preceding decade. The dissolution of form into a series of broken strokes reflects both issues of dexterity and an awareness of new modes of using watercolor in the wake of Cezanne's success.