Going to Market

This picture is one of several reduced variants of Troyon's Departure for the Market (Le Départ pour le Marché), which was exhibited in the Salon of 1859 (see Leeman 1996). The young Claude Monet, who visited the Salon, described it as “superb and full of light.”[1] The Salon painting (now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) depicts two riders and additional animals. Troyon painted a replica of the Salon painting (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Verviers, Belgium). A version similar to The Met’s was sold at Sotheby's, New York, on January 19, 1995 (no. 360), and may be the one reproduced as an engraving in Arthur Hustin's monograph on the artist (Paris [1893], ill. between pp. 48–49). Another version of The Met composition is in a private collection, 's-Hertogenbosch.

Elements of the composition reflect those of an earlier painting by Troyon, Going to Market on a Misty Morning (1851, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown).

Presumably made for the domestic setting of a private collector, The Met's painting testifies to Troyon’s popularity as a painter of animal subjects after 1847, when, during a trip to The Netherlands and Belgium, the work of seventeenth-century artists Paulus Potter and Aelbert Cuyp proved a revelation, determining the course of the rest of his career. For additional context, see The Met 25.110.19.

Asher Miller 2023

[1] Quoted by Henri Loyrette, “The Salon of 1859,” in Gary Tinterow and H. Loyrette, Origins of Impressionism, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994, p. 23 n. 80 and p. 25.

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): C. TROYON. 1860.

Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher, New York (by 1899–his d. 1917)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mr. & Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection," March 4–?, 1918, no catalogue.

Winnipeg Art Gallery. "French Pre-Impressionist Painters of the Nineteenth Century," April 10–May 9, 1954, no. 61.

Oshkosh, Wis. Paine Art Center & Arboretum. "The Barbizon Heritage: An Oshkosh Exhibition for the Centennial of Nathan Paine," July 12–August 27, 1970, unnumbered cat.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, not in catalogue.

Albany. New York State Museum. "French Painters of Nature; The Barbizon School: Landscapes from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 22–August 22, 2004, no catalogue.

Isaac D. Fletcher. Letter to Mrs. Henry Hornblower. May 1, 1899, describes this picture as a sheperdhess seated on a donkey taking the sheep to pasture.

"The Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 13 (March 1918), p. 60.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 96.

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 2, XIX Century. New York, 1966, p. 76, ill., call it a smaller variant of "Départ pour le marché" shown in the Salon of 1859 (Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg); mention a similar painting formerly in the collection of Prince Troubetskoy.

Denys Sutton in French Paintings from the Mesdag Museum, The Hague. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co. Ltd. London, 1969, p. 35, under no. 31.

Hans-Peter Bühler. Die Schule von Barbizon: Französische Landschaftmalerei im 19. Jahrhundert. Munich, 1979, pp. 36, 88, fig. 95.

Hans-Peter Bühler. "Salonfähige Tierbilder: Constant Troyon (1810–1865)." Weltkunst 55 (December 1, 1985), p. 3708, fig. 10.

John Sillevis and Hans Kraan in L'Ecole de Barbizon: Un dialogue franco-néerlandais. Ed. John Sillevis and Hans Kraan. Exh. cat., Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent. The Hague, 1985, p. 195, call it a replica of the Salon painting (Hermitage); note the similarity of the donkey in another Troyon painting, "Paysanne montée sur un âne" (Hamburger Kunsthalle).

Annegret Höhler in Landschaft im Licht: Impressionistische Malerei in Europa und Nordamerika, 1860–1910. Ed. Götz Czymmek. Exh. cat., Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Cologne, 1990, p. 84, ill.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 415, ill.

John Sillevis in Corot, Courbet und die Maler von Barbizon: "Les amis de la nature". Ed. Christoph Heilmann, Michael Clarke, and John Sillevis. Exh. cat., Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen and Haus der Kunst München. Munich, 1996, p. 340, under no. B148.

Fred Leeman in Fred Leeman and Hanna Pennock. Museum Mesdag: Catalogue of Paintings and Drawings. Amsterdam, 1996, pp. 412–13, notes that Troyon made a series of reductions of the Salon painting (Hermitage), including ours; remarks that the engraving reproduced in A. Hustin's 1893 monograph on Troyon [see Notes] is almost identical to our painting and is based on a picture owned by Knoedler, New York in 1909; mentions another version of the MMA painting in a private collection, 's-Hertogenbosch.

Fronia E. Wissman in Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Ed. Sarah Lees. Williamstown, Mass., 2012, vol. 2, p. 805, under no. 335, calls "Going to Market on a Misty Morning" (1851, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown) the first instance of this composition and the versions in the Mesdag Collection, The Hague; the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; and The Met all subsequent reworkings of the scene.