Merlin

Frederic de Reiset, Paris;

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie’s, 26 January 2001, lot 57;

Where acquired by the present collector.

Possibly Paris Salon of 1824, no. 1214.

Possibly Paris Salons, New York 1977, p. 132, cat. no. 1214.

Merlin was a landscapist active in Rouen, where he developed a practice rooted in close observation of the regional terrain. Between 1812 and 1824 he regularly presented views of Alsace and Normandy at the Paris Salon. The present painting accords with the type of Normandy landscape he favored, and it may be identifiable with the work he exhibited in 1824 under the title Vue d’une maison de campagne située sur la route de Bapaume, a site situated just outside Rouen.