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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2008.47
People
Balthasar Paul Ommeganck, Flemish (Antwerp 1755 - 1826 Antwerp)
Title
Rocky Landscape
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
18th-19th century
Culture
Flemish
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/326452

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Gray wash and black chalk on cream antique laid paper; framing lines in brown ink
Dimensions
26.5 x 41.4 cm (10 7/16 x 16 5/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • watermark: C & I HONIG
  • inscription: verso, brown ink, lower right: Ce / Dessin est / l'ouvrage de / B.P. Ommeganck / mon père / [?] Ommeganck
  • inscription: verso, graphite, lower left: 6898-FS[?]
  • inscription: verso, graphite, lower right: 07 [?] / 125
  • inscription: verso, graphite, upper left: No 220 / P.L. 3099 [?]
  • collector's mark: lower right, blue stamp: L. 1742 (Lucien Rouzé-Huet)
  • clipping: clipping from sale catalogue[?] pasted to sheet at bottom: 191. Ommeganck. - Étude de paysage; lavis.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
B.P. Ommeganck to his son or daughter [unidentified]. Lucien Rouzé-Huet (L. 1742, lower right). Paul Prouté, Paris, sold; to Harvard Art Museums, 2008.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Agnes Mongan Purchase Fund
Accession Year
2008
Object Number
2008.47
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
Although nearly forgotten today, the Belgian artist Balthasar Paul Ommeganck was a renowned, successful, and widely imitated painter during his lifetime. At the height of his career, Ommeganck captured a prestigious award at the Paris Salon of 1799 without even entering the competition, the Empress Josephine purchased one of his works every year, and his entire output was sold in advance. He played a leading role in the art schools and associations of Antwerp and belonged to the academies of Amsterdam, Brussels, Munich and Vienna. His contemporaries hailed him as the "Raphael of Sheep" and the "Racine of Sheep"--flattering honorifics that sound ridiculous or satirical to us, but were certainly meant as the highest form of praise for an artist who specialized in pastoral scenes with prominent cattle.

Ommeganck adapted the poetic, golden light, Mediterranean scenery, and idyllic mood depicted by Aelbert Cuyp and Dutch Italianate painters of the seventeenth-century, although he occasionally set his herdsmen and animals in the rugged landscape of Belgium's Ardennes. The latter views are based on careful observation. Like his Belgian contemporary Simon Denis-a fellow pupil in the studio of the Antwerp painter Hendricus-Josephus Antonissen-Ommeganck was a precursor of the nineteenth-century practice of making detailed studies from nature.

"Rocky Landscape" exemplifies this naturalistic approach. A gray-wash sketch that captures the lively play of light in a clearing beneath a rocky outcropping, it is the kind of close study of an unprepossessing corner of the forest, clearly executed directly from the motif, that would become the norm for the next generation of landscapists.

--William W. Robinson

Publication History

  • Dessins et estampes du XVIe au XXe siècle, auct. cat., Paul Prouté, S.A. (Paris, 2007), no. 41

Subjects and Contexts

  • Dutch, Flemish, & Netherlandish Drawings

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu