View of Lake Nemi

1843

Jules Coignet

Painter, French, 1798 - 1860

Jules Coignet

Attributed to

A sheer cliff looming across a deep valley is backlit by a low sunset in this is horizontal landscape painting. The tree closest to us grows up above the canopies of trees that fill the valley and nearly touches the top edge of the composition. Brown buildings clustered near the edge of the cliff are outlined against the sunset sky. Light falls across the landscape from the left, casting the right face of the cliff into shadow. The foot of the cliff angles steeply down to a paler green and gold area, and another ridge of rocky hills extends across the right half of the composition to enclose a body of still water. The horizon, which comes just over halfway up the painting, is streaked with pale rust red, lavender purple, and slate blue. The sky above is warmed to soft yellow with a few streaks of darker straw-yellow clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Nemi 1843.”

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Art market, Paris;[1] (Galerie Fischer-Kiener, Paris); sold November 1991 to Mrs. John Jay Ide, San Francisco; gift 1994 to NGA.
[1] See letter dated 28 October 1999 from Jacques Fischer, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2003

  • Maestà di Roma. D'Ingres à Degas. Les artistes français à Rome, Académie de France à Rome; Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, 2003, no. 163, repro.

2020

  • True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2020 - 2022, no. 104, repro.

Bibliography

2000

  • Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 19-20, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Nemi 1843

Wikidata ID

Q20187102


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