Hautbois Common lies near the villages of Great Hautbois and Coltishall, some eight miles northeast of Crome's native Norwich. Although the motif was one that he must have seen, the composition also strongly suggests the influence of the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Meyndert Hobbema. It is very likely that this work was exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists in 1810 as Scene on Hautbois Common, near Coltishall, Norfolk.
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Credit Line:Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889
Object Number:89.15.14
Hautbois Common lies near the villages of Great Hautbois and Coltishall, seven or eight miles northeast of Crome’s native Norwich. Although the motif, a path through a stand of oaks and other trees beside a common, was one that he must have seen, the composition also strongly suggests the influence of Hobbema and perhaps Jacob van Ruisdael. A similar painting by Crome with a more expansive background is The Beaters (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh).
If this is the work that was exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists in 1810 as Scene on Hautbois Common, near Coltishall, Norfolk, which cannot be proven but seems likely, then that year would be its approximate date of execution. A copy of a document that came with the picture to the Museum states that "Hautboys Common" was “Warranted by the Late John Crome” and sold in 1837 for forty pounds by Wigger to Sherrington. Labels formerly on the reverse further testify to the ownership of Sherrington and Mrs. Ellison, from whose husband’s estate sale it was bought by Agnew’s.
The picture has suffered (it was transferred from a panel to canvas in 1914), but it seems to be an authentic work by the artist.
There are two works with the same subject, neither by Crome: a pencil and brown wash drawing, attributed to Richard Girling (Castle Museum, Norwich) and an oil painting, formerly in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (sale, Sotheby's, London, November 18, 1981, no. 57, as by David Hodgson).
[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
Francis Stone, The Shrubbery, Norwich (by 1821–35; his estate sale, The Shrubbery, October 23, 1835, no. 106, as "A splendid Landscape, [Hautbois Common]"); [John Wigger, Bethel Street, Norwich, until 1837; sold for £40 to Sherrington]; James Norton Sherrington, Yarmouth (1837–d. 1848); ?Mrs. James Norton Sherrington, later Mrs. Caleb Rose (until 1858; sale, Sherrington Collection, Christie's, London, May 1, 1858, no. 29, as "A Small Landscape: Entrance to a Village—panel," for £15.15.0); Mr. and Mrs. Richard Ellison, Sudbrooke Holme, Lincolnshire (by 1862–74; his estate sale, Christie's, London, May 16, 1874, no. 70, as "Hautbois Common: a landscape, with clump of trees . . . From the Sherrington Collection," for £420 to Agnew); [Agnew, London, 1874; sold to Levy]; Albert Levy, London (1874–84; his sale, Christie's, London, April 6, 1876, no. 288, as "Hautbois Common: a landscape with a clump of trees and donkeys in the foreground, 25 x 35 in., from the Sherrington Collection and from the Collection of Richard Ellison, Esq.," for £404.5.0, bought in; posthumous sale, Christie's, London, May 3, 1884, no. 15, as "Hautbois Common: known as the Clump of Trees," for £435.15.0 to Lesser); [Lesser Lesser, London, from 1884]; ?Baron Hirsch, Paris; [Sedelmeyer, Paris, until 1888; sold for Fr 16,000 to Marquand]; Henry G. Marquand, New York (1888–89)
Norwich Society of Artists. 1810, no. 27 (as "Scene at Hautbois Common, near Coltishall, in Norfolk," probably this picture) [see Wodderspoon 1876, Collins Baker 1921, and Goldberg 1978].
Norwich Society of Artists. "The Principal Pictures Painted by the Late Mr. Crome," 1821, no. 37 (as "Hautbois Common, Norfolk," lent by Mr. F. Stone).
London. South Kensington Museum. "International Exhibition," 1862, no. 125 (as "A Clump of Trees, Hautbois Common," lent by Mrs. Ellison) [see Collins Baker 1921].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Exhibition of 1888–89," 1888–89, no. 23 (as "Landscape," by Old Crome).
Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences. "The Artist Looks at Nature," November 30, 1952–January 13, 1953, no. 17.
Tokyo National Museum. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," August 10–October 1, 1972, no. 89.
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Treasured Masterpieces of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 8–November 26, 1972, no. 89.
John Wodderspoon. John Crome and His Works. 2nd ed. Norwich, 1876, pp. 14, 20, lists "Scene on Hautbois Common, near Coltishall, Norfolk" of 1810, among works exhibited at the Norwich Society, and "Hautbois Common, Norfolk" of 1810, belonging to Mr. F. Stone, among works included in the Crome Memorial Exhibition, 1821.
"Art Sales." Times (May 12, 1884), p. 9.
"Verscheidenheid." Utrechtsch Provinciaal en Stedelijk Dagblad no. 57 (February 26, 1889), unpaginated, as attributed to "Old Crome".
Illustrated Catalogue of 300 Paintings by Old Masters of the Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, and English Schools. Paris, 1898, p. 312, no. 284, ill. p. 40.
William Frederick Dickes. The Norwich School of Painting. London, [1906], pp. 67–68, identifies the painting from the Stone and Ellison collections with "Scene on Hautbois Common, near Coltishall," which was exhibited in 1810.
P[ercy]. M[oore]. Turner. "Pictures of the English School in New York." Burlington Magazine 22 (February 1913), p. 270, pl. IIC, comments that this picture,"although somewhat faded owing to the influence of time, shows a certain and charming phase of Crome's art at its best".
C. H. Collins Baker. Crome. London, 1921, pp. 37, 43, 59, 78, 85, 91, 101, 108–10, 118, 139, 187, 192–93, 196–98, accepts the attribution and the date, 1810, discusses the influence of Hobbema on Crome, and tentatively connects this landscape with one in the Sherrington sale of 1858.
Henri Focillon. La Peinture au XIXe siècle. Paris, 1927, p. 131, reproduces a wash drawing in the collection of P. M. Turner, calling it a study for our picture.
C. H. Collins Baker. British Painting. London, 1933, p. 278.
Richard Redgrave and Samuel Redgrave. A Century of British Painters. new ed. London, 1947, p. 351, as "A Clump of Trees, Hautbois Common," probably the one in the Norwich Society catalogue of 1810.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 24.
Norman L. Goldberg. "Old Crome in America." Connoisseur 146 (December 1960), pp. 214–15, no. 5, ill., notes that the picture was transferred from wood to canvas in 1914.
Miklos Rajnai. Letter to Theodore Rousseau. January 5, 1965, states that his first impression is that it does not "seem to have much claim to Crome".
Derek Clifford and Sir Timothy Clifford. John Crome. London, 1968, pp. 248–49, 259, 279, no. P 126, connect it tentatively with one in Stone's sale of 1835, but find no evidence that it was in the Sherrington sale; T. Clifford "considers it a copy of a lost original," while D. Clifford accepts the attribution to Crome, but dates it later than 1810.
Miklos Rajnai. The Norwich Society of Artists, 1805–1833. 1976, pp. 36, 174, lists "Scene on Hautbois common, near Coltishall, in Norfolk," exhibited in 1810.
Norman L. Goldberg. John Crome the Elder. Oxford, 1978, vol. 1, pp. 30, 55, 58, 86 n. 3, p. 96 n. 28, pp. 134, 192–93, 216, 288, 292, no. 45, colorpl. 5; vol. 2, fig. 45, provides complete provenance, questioning only the identification with lot 29 in the Sherrington sale; states that "there can be no doubt that the present picture is an original by Crome" of 1810.
Andrew Hemingway. "Review of Goldberg 1978." Burlington Magazine 121 (May 1979), p. 327.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 200, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875. New York, 2009, pp. 206–8, no. 103, ill. (color).
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