Ville d'Avray — /. B. C. Corot 
 
 mBMIs m i ' Hi 
 
MESSRS. R. C. £sf N. M. VOSE 
 
 RESPECTFULLY INVITE YOU AND 
 YOUR FRIENDS TO AN EXHIBITION 
 OF PAINTINGS BY THE 
 
 FRENCH MASTERS OF 1830 
 
 THIS EXHIBITION 
 WILL OPEN MARCH SEVENTEENTH 
 NINETEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHT, - 
 THE FIFTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY 
 OF THE ESTABLISHMENT IN BUSI- 
 NESS OF THEIR FATHER 
 
 MR. SETH MORTON VOSE 
 
 OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND* 
 
 MR.S.M.VOSE IMPORTEDHIS FIRST 
 PAINTINGS BY COROT IN I 852, HIS 
 FIRST TROYONS IN I 854 ; BY I 857 
 HE HAD WORKS BY COROT, DAU- 
 BIGNY, MILLET, DUPRE, ROUSSEAU, 
 TROYON, DIAZ AND DELACROIX. 
 
 THIS IS THE SIXTY-SEVENTH YEAR FROM 
 THE FOUNDATION OF THE HOUSE. 
 
THE BARBIZON SCHOOL 
 
 */ |‘BOUT 1830 the revolt against Classi- 
 <%/'-*-» cism in France was at its height. 
 
 In art, the Romanticists, under the leadership 
 of Gdricault, Delacroix and Decamps, had 
 startled the world by their brilliant and power- 
 ful works. 
 
 A little group of landscape painters, Rous- 
 seau, Millet, and Diaz, lived in the village of 
 Barbizon. In close touch with them were other 
 landscape painters, Corot, Daubigny, Duprd, 
 and Troyon. All devoted lovers of Nature, 
 they studied her affectionately and searchingly 
 in all her varied moods, determined to depict 
 the Truth without regard to tradition. 
 
 One in sympathy and in aim, they aided and 
 inspired each other. Struggling for long years 
 against poverty, derision, and neglect, they 
 transformed landscape art until it became no 
 longer mere scene painting, but a new art which 
 showed Nature as revealed to their responsive 
 souls. 
 
 Their message to mankind is one of faith and 
 love. No one can have true acquaintance with 
 their works without feeling their uplifting, in- 
 spiring influence. 
 
JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT 
 
 1 796— 1 875 
 
 Pupil of A. R. Michallon and Victor Berlin 
 
 To Corot is universally accorded the supreme place 
 in landscape art, which he has influenced as has no 
 other man. Intellectually great, and the closest stu- 
 dent of nature, he broke away from tradition and pro- 
 duced a new art, classical as the art of the Greeks, 
 pure as his own nature ; an art breathing the spirit 
 of the morning, fresh with dew ; an art subtle, tender, 
 and poetic. For years misunderstood, his art rejected, 
 he never lost his happiness of disposition, never be- 
 came discouraged, and when success came and his 
 work was accorded the highest praise he labored on 
 as unmoved as by former neglect, producing ever 
 nobler works and using the now rich returns to help 
 the needy. 
 
 “ Le Pere Corot,” as he was so affectionately called 
 by his countrymen, died the best loved man in France. 
 To him the world gives affection in ever increasing 
 measure as it appreciates his priceless gift. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/frenchmastersof100vose 
 
CHARLES FRANgOIS DAUBIGNY 
 
 1817-1878 
 
 Pupil of Delar oche 
 
 Like his best friend Corot, an ardent lover of nature, 
 Daubigny devoted his life to studying her in all her 
 garbs and moods. The best years of his life were 
 passed in his house-boat on the river Oise, which he 
 immortalized by his art, depicting the tranquil flow 
 of its waters and the fresh verdure of its banks in a 
 series of paysages intimes so ideal and yet so true, so 
 complete and yet so subtle, so filled with the poetry 
 of nature, that all must love them. 
 
 Equally admirable are his canvases on which he 
 shows, with great power and beauty, nature in her 
 less tranquil moods. In freshness and purity of color 
 his pictures are unsurpassed, and in their atmosphere 
 one can move and breathe. 
 

 
 
 * 
 
 # 
 
 
 
JEAN FRANgOIS MILLET 
 
 1814-1875 
 
 Pupil of Mouchel , Langlois and Delaroche 
 
 Millet went to Barbizon at the age of thirty-five and 
 became especially intimate with Rousseau and Diaz, 
 Himself a peasant, his sympathies were all with the 
 toilers in the fields and cottages. His spinners and 
 gleaners, ploughmen and sowers, inspired the world 
 with a new appreciation of the dignity of labor, and 
 a new respect for the hardy sons and daughters of 
 toil. He led the world of art away from the artificiali- 
 ties of life, painting sermons on canvas, which plead 
 eloquently for simple living, and some, as “ The An- 
 gelus ” filled with the profoundest religious feeling. 
 

JULES DUPRE 
 
 1812-1889 
 
 Born at Nantes and practically self-taught, he painted 
 his native pastures with great truth and charm. Visit- 
 ing England, he was filled with admiration for the 
 paintings of Constable, who exerted a strong influence 
 over him and his brother painters. Dupre and Rous- 
 seau became very intimate friends, and together with 
 Diaz have immortalized the Forest of Fontainebleau. 
 He worked with a passionate intensity, depicting the 
 great oaks, which were his favorite models, with all 
 their native majesty and beauty. 
 
 His landscapes are brilliant, virile and powerful, and 
 the great clouds which roll over them are inspiring in 
 their fleecy grandeur. 
 

 
 
 
PIERRE ETIENNE THEODORE 
 ROUSSEAU 
 
 1812-1867 
 
 Pupil of Remond and LethiZre 
 
 Rousseau painted much at Auvergne as well as in 
 Fontainebleau. He was the leading spirit in the 
 Barbizon group, all of whom owed much to his influ- 
 ence. He painted nature with the utmost fidelity and 
 with wonderful precision and skill in drawing, tech- 
 nique, and composition, being indeed a perfect work- 
 man with a palette rich and varied. “ He takes the 
 common earth and while showing it to us as it really 
 is, brings out all its homely beauties.” 
 

 
 
 
 

 CONSTANT TROYON 
 
 1810-1865 
 
 Pupil of Roqueplan 
 
 Through his master Roqueplan, Troyon became ac- 
 quainted with the Barbizon painters, with whom he 
 soon sympathized. At Fontainebleau, in the compan- 
 ionship of Theodore Rousseau and Jules Dupr6, he 
 discovered the path which led to the full develop- 
 ment of his own powers and from the Barbizon coun- 
 try came the inspiration to transfer to canvas the 
 browsing cattle and the rolling meadows. 
 
 So closely do his landscapes and the cattle harmonize 
 that neither forces our attention first, but we follow 
 him through the simple story of a summer day as we 
 might read from the book of Nature herself. He 
 loved best to depict cattle, and as a cattle painter he 
 has no equal. 
 

 
 
 
 
NARCISSE VIRGILE DIAZ DE LA 
 PENA 
 
 1808-1876 
 
 Diaz was born in France of Spanish parentage, and 
 his southern temperament shows itself in all his work, 
 which is brilliant, sparkling, rich and warm. He was 
 pre-eminently a colorist, a worshipper at the shrine of 
 Correggio, and whether he shows us a cluster of 
 flowers, a group of dogs, Venus with her attendant 
 nymphs, or the glades of Fontainebleau aglow with 
 sunlight, always the eye is charmed by the richness 
 of his color and the brilliance of his technique. The 
 Orient appealed strongly to him and influenced much 
 of his work. 
 
MODERN 
 
 PAINTINGS 
 
 Early English 
 Barbizon :: :: 
 American and 
 Modern Dutch 
 
 R. C. &> N. M. VOSE 
 
 320 Boylston Street 
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