Description
When this painting was shown in an 1826 exhibition, the accompanying catalogue stated that it was "painted after nature." Although Léon Cogniet never traveled to North America, he may have encountered a native person from the Arctic. In 1820, an American sea captain, Samuel Hadlock, met two Inuit from Labrador, George Niakungitok and Mary Coonahnik, who accompanied Hadlock on a tour of America and Europe. The tour, an early example of a commercial show presenting people from lesser-known parts of the world to paying European audiences, concluded in Paris in 1826. The show also included a panoramic view of Baffin Bay (located between northeast Canada and Greenland) that may have inspired the cloudy sky and ice formations in Cogniet's painting.
Provenance
Offered by Cogniet to Baron Gros in 1826. His sale, Paris, 23 November 1835 (lot 125), Femme du pays des Esquimaux, ouvrage exposé au salon du Louvre en 1827, for ff 715 to Dubois. Mme Pétrus Martin, Paris. Her collection sale, Paris, Drouot, 6-7 February 1902 (lot 10), Femme du pays des Esquimaux, signé à gauche, 45 x 36 cm, ff 42. (The CMA painting is signed on the right and the Douwes version is signed on the left, so this auction catalogue entry may refer to that painting.) Shepherd Gallery, New York. Bought in August 1976 by Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland. Bequeathed to the CMA in 1980.
Accession Number
1980.249
Medium
oil on fabric
Dimensions
Framed: 62.9 x 57.2 x 8.9 cm (24 3/4 x 22 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.); Unframed: 42.5 x 36.5 cm (16 3/4 x 14 3/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting French
Background & Context
Background Story
Leon Cogniet (1794-1880) was a French painter known for the precisely observed, characterful historical and portrait paintings that make him one of the most accomplished painters of the French Romantic tradition. A Woman from the Arctic from 1826 depicts a woman from the Arctic in the precisely observed, characterful manner that distinguishes Cogniet's best work from the more general painting of his contemporaries. The 1826 date places this in the period when French Romantic painting was producing some of its most accomplished works, and the Arctic subject shows Cogniet's talent for depicting exotic subjects with precise observation and characterful detail.
Cultural Impact
A Woman from the Arctic is important in the history of French Romantic painting because it demonstrates the precisely observed, characterful manner that Cogniet brought to exotic subjects as one of the most accomplished painters of the French Romantic tradition. Cogniet's precisely observed, characterful paintings—combining the exotic subject matter of the Romantic tradition with the precise observation that is his most distinctive contribution—represent one of the most accomplished traditions in French Romantic painting, and the 1826 painting shows this tradition at its most precisely observed.
Why It Matters
A Woman from the Arctic is Cogniet's precisely observed Romantic painting: an Arctic woman rendered in the characterful manner of one of the most accomplished painters of the French Romantic tradition. The 1826 painting shows the combination of exotic subject matter with precise observation that makes French Romantic painting distinctive.
