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Antique Landscape Paintings

About this collection

Antique landscape painting is the art of the open country, practised by European painters from the 17th century onwards, from classical and pastoral views to the forests, fields and rivers of the 19th century.

In the 19th century the landscape painter began to work outdoors. Pastoral scenes, river views, heaths and nocturnes came out of that habit, most of them oils on canvas or wood panel and many signed. To see how the change began, read our guide to the Barbizon School in painting.

Moonlight over two windmills beside a canal, signed oil on canvas, late 19th century, in a fluted gilt frame

European School, late 19th century

Moonlight over Two Windmills, 1800s
$3,200Signed
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
Sunset landscape with a shepherd and his flock in silhouette against an orange sun, in a silvered moulded frame (Etienne Mein)

Etienne Mein (1865-1938)

Oedipus and Antigone at Sunset
$3,800Signed
Signed winter snow landscape by Alfred Andrieux with mountains, French oil on panel, carved gilt frame

Alfred Louis Andrieux (1879-1945)

Snowy Landscape, 1900s
$1,800Signed

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
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 orientalist oil painting of a palm oasis and rocky gorge at sunset, late 19th century, in a gilded wood frame

John Lewis Shonborn (1852-1931)

Oasis Gorge at Sunset
$3,900Signed
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
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
 The school Barbizon School1830 to 1870The Forest of Fontainebleau, painted on the spot.Discover the school
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
Unsigned French oil on panel of a shepherd driving his flock through bare trees, in a carved giltwood frame

French School, early 20th century

Shepherd and Flock, 1900s
$1,900
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
Five stooks of cut wheat in a stubble field under a clouded summer sky, a dark treeline behind, in a carved gilt and black frame (Gaston Bonfils)

Gaston Bonfils (1855-1946)

Sheaves in a Harvest Field
$2,400Signed
Willow leaning over dark water with reeds and a gold field beyond, signed oil on canvas

James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)

Pollarded Willow, 1921
$1,900Signed
Signed Barbizon heather landscape by James Desvarreux, purple moor in bloom, carved silvered frame

James Desvarreux-Larpenteur (1847-1937)

Heather in Bloom
$2,900Signed
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 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
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
SoldSigned 19th century poppy field landscape by Rousseau with cattle and wildflowers under a blue sky, gilt frame

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1861-1911)

Poppy Fields, late 1800sSold

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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Elsewhere in the gallery

Antique landscape paintings for sale at GalerieClub

For a long time the academies ranked landscape below history and portrait. The 19th century reversed that order in practice, and the antique landscape oil paintings in this collection come mostly from those decades, when painters left the studio and many began to sign what they found outside.

  • The working land became a subject. French countryside oil painting in the 19th century took in fields at harvest, orchards, meadows and farm buildings, and it followed the seasons more closely than any map. Most of these views name no village, because their subject is the time of year and the light, not a precise place.

  • Flocks and herds give a landscape its scale. In an antique pastoral painting the animals are rarely the whole subject. They lead the eye into the distance and show how far the field runs before the trees close it.

  • Painters of the century went to the river bank, the forest edge and the open heath, often in the same season. An antique river landscape painting sets water and reflections under a wide sky, while a forest or heath landscape works the ground itself, bracken, heather and paths. Both tend to keep a low horizon.

  • Some landscapes are painted at the end of the day. A sunset lets warm colour take over the sky. A nocturne does the opposite, and an antique moonlight painting builds its scene from a few pale values against the dark, with the moon as the only source of light.

  • Landscape painters usually signed in a lower corner, sometimes adding a date. A signed antique landscape painting can be placed in a painter's career, and an unsigned one is described by school and period, as our guide to reading an attribution explains. Canvas is the usual support, wood panel the other, and many works keep their period gilt frames.