Georges Michel, French 1763-1843- A dune landscape with windmills; oil...

Georges Michel,
French 1763-1843-

A dune landscape with windmills;

oil on canvas, bears signature and date ‘John Constable 1809’ (lower right), 55.2 x 80.4 cm.

Provenance:
Private Collection, France, circa 1900.
Private Collection, UK (as John Constable) until 2015;
when acquired by the present owner.

Note: We are grateful to Michel Schulman for confirming the authenticity of the present work. The painting will be included in the forthcoming digital catalogue raisonné on the artist.

Michel's oeuvre represents a significant precursor to the Barbizon school, developed and promoted by Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875) and Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867) later in the 19th century. The present work is a particularly atmospheric and finely painted landscape by Michel, whose dramatic, expansive views of the area outside Paris have come to define his output. Michel was clearly fascinated by the windmills which populated the landscape, and which recur in the artist's paintings with regularity, gesturing towards the influence of Dutch landscape painters such as Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709) and Jacob van Ruisdael (c.1629-1682).