Collecting Guides

Animated Landscapes, Figures in 19th-Century French Painting

A landscape in which figures appear, but in which the figures are not the subject. How to read the French paysage animé — and why the same canvas sells for less catalogued one way than the other.

Haystacks in French Painting, Before and After Monet

Sixty years of French haystacks before Monet made them the whole picture, and the difference between a sheaf and a stack.

Pastoral Scenes, Shepherds and Sheep in 19th-Century French Painting

The century that took the pastoral back from porcelain shepherdesses and gave it the weight of a biblical scene.