About the Work
The light is the protagonist. Dark rain clouds have built up in front of the sun. Only in the distance does the wide country shine in a golden light, giving it a stage-like appearance. Paintings such as this work, which Antoine Chintreuil presented at the Salon in 1868, made the artist one of the most important precursors of the Impressionists. They revered him for his masterful handling of light. He had trained with the Salon painter Paul Delaroche. However, it had been his artist friend Camille Corot who had inspired him to paint landscapes en plein air.
About the Acquisition
It can be assumed that the painting’s donor mentioned in the inventory book as Leopold B. H. Goldschmidt, Paris, was in fact Leopold Benedikt Hayum Goldschmidt. He was the son of Benedikt Hayum Goldschmidt (1798–1873), who had founded Bankhaus B. H. Goldschmidt in Frankfurt in the nineteenth century. It is not known when precisely Goldschmidt moved to Paris – it may have been after the Prussian conquest of Frankfurt in 1866. He remained registered as a member of the Städelscher Museums-Verein for many years after.
