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Barbizon School Paintings

About this collection

The Barbizon School gathers the French painters who, from the 1830s onward, left the studio to paint the forest of Fontainebleau and the farmland around the village of Barbizon, the circle of Théodore Rousseau and Camille Corot that opened the way to Impressionism.

They painted what they walked through. The works here are original 19th century oils on canvas and on wood panel in that tradition, forest edges, heaths, flocks and river banks, many of them signed and many in period gilt frames. To learn how to read these landscapes, see our guide to the Barbizon School in painting.

A girl in a blue skirt feeding a flock of turkeys in a shorn field at the edge of an oak wood, signed oil by Emile Michel dated 1872, in a carved gilt frame

Emile Michel (1828-1909)

Girl with Turkeys, 1872
$6,700Signed
Full view of the framed canvas, blossoming tree and thatched farm with hens, in its carved gilt swept frame

Paul Emmanuel Péraire (1829-1893)

Blossoming Tree and Farmyard
$3,700Signed
Signed heather path landscape by James Desvarreux, a sand track climbing between banks of flowering heather toward blue hills, late 19th century oil in a period gilt frame

James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)

Heather Path in Bloom
$2,700Signed
Antique French Barbizon landscape with haystacks signed and dated 1882, oil on wood panel in a gilded carved frame

Eugène Forest (1808-1891)

Haystacks Landscape, 1880s
$2,600Signed

Guides · before you buy

Haystacks in French Painting, Before and After MonetSixty years of French haystacks before Monet made them the whole picture, and the difference between a sheaf and a stack.Read the guideAnimated Landscapes, Figures in 19th-Century French PaintingA landscape in which figures appear, but in which the figures are not the subject.Read the guide
Barbizon School landscape with a woman and child by the water, 19th century French oil on canvas by Edmond Renault, in an ornate gilt frame

Charles Edmond Renault (1829-1905)

Woman and Child by the Water, 1800s
$3,600Signed
Barbizon school river landscape with a cow, 19th century French oil, gilt carved frame

French School, 19th century

River Landscape with Cow, 1800s
$2,700
Two oxen under the yoke drawing a cart across flowering heather with sheep grazing, signed Desvarreux oil on canvas in a carved gilt frame

James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)

Oxen and Sheep in a Clearing
$3,700Signed
Signed Adolphe-Félix Cals landscape of sheaves in a stubble field, oil on canvas, 19th century French school, in a gilt frame with flower corners

Adolphe-Félix Cals (1810-1880)

Haystacks in a Stubble Field
$8,900Signed
Signed Barbizon heather landscape by James Desvarreux, purple moor in bloom, carved silvered frame

James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)

Heather in Bloom
$2,900Signed
Antique French landscape with four large haystacks and a shepherd driving his flock, oil on canvas in a gilded frame

Alexandre Gaston Guignard (1848-1922)

Shepherd among Haystacks
$3,600Signed

GalerieClub Fine Art

1,100+

paintings sold since 2017

Poppy Fields, late 1800sSold Poppy Fields, late 1800s Hagar and Ishmael, 1700sSold Hagar and Ishmael, 1700s Penitent Magdalene, 1600sSold Penitent Magdalene, 1600s

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Barbizon School paintings for sale at GalerieClub

A village of a few farms gave its name to a way of painting. The Barbizon School paintings in this collection belong to that tradition, original 19th century French oils in which painters looked at the ordinary countryside with the attention once reserved for history and myth.

  • The forest came first. Painters of the Barbizon circle worked at the edge of the woods and on the open heath around them, where light breaks through the trees and heather flowers pink and violet in late summer. A Barbizon landscape oil painting usually keeps a low horizon, an earthy and muted palette, and a sky that takes as much care as the ground.

  • Animals gave the fields their life. Shepherds bringing a flock down at the end of the day, oxen resting in a clearing and cattle drinking at the water all belong to the pastoral side of Barbizon painting, painted without sentiment and without anecdote. The animals are never the subject alone. They show the scale of the land and the hour of the light.

  • Water drew painters as strongly as the forest. River banks with trees hanging over them, and figures walking along the edge, turned a landscape into a place where people lived and worked. In a Barbizon river scene the figures stay small, part of the land rather than posed in front of it.

  • Many Barbizon painters signed in a lower corner, sometimes with a date, and a signed French Barbizon oil painting often still hangs in its period gilt frame. Working outdoors, they often chose wood panel, light to carry and quick to dry.

    For the history of the movement itself, read about the Barbizon School.