Eugène Cuvelier 1837-1900

The collection of John Chandler Bancroft, Middletown, Rhode Island

Gustave J. S. White Co., Auctioneers, Newport, Rhode Island, 1989

Acquired from the above by a New England antiques dealer

To the present owners, 1989

Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Eugène Cuvelier oder Die Legende vom Wald, March - May 1997

Ulrike Gauss, Henning Weidemann, and Daniel Challe, Eugène Cuvelier (Stuttgart, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), no. 250 (this print)

This image, made in the Jean-de-Paris area of Fontainebleau, shows the birch trees that were, along with oaks and beeches, the most prevalent trees native to the forest.  Birches figure prominently in Narcisse Diaz de la Peña's 1867 painting, The 'Jean de Paris' Hill, Fontainebleau (reproduced in Bouret, The Barbizon School and 19^th Century French Landscape Painting, New York, 1972, p. 199). 

Beginning in the 1840s, Fontainebleau's chief promoter and unofficial steward, Claude-François Denecourt, blazed a network of walking trails through the forest, bestowing names upon the chief aspects of the landscape.  His names for trees (especially oaks), rocks, and other landmarks, were all drawn from the deep well of French history.  It is unclear for whom Jean de Paris was named, although a quick search of notable Frenchmen reveals two possible candidates.  Jean Perréal (circa 1460 - 1530), the renowned French painter, sculptor, and architect, was known as Jean de Paris.  Perréal was among the most important portraitists of his day, was a court painter to the Bourbons, and worked under Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I.  Jean Quidort (circa 1255 - 1306), also known as Jean de Paris, was a Dominican monk and theologian. His writings on the separation between the Catholic Church and the government, as well as on papal fallibility and transubstantiation, were progressive for the time and ultimately earned him censure and a sentence of perpetual silence.  Both Perreal and Quidort held sufficiently prominent positions in French history to have attracted Denecourt. 

Gauss accounts for only one print of this image: the salt print offered here.