"Study of Roosters" 
Charles-Emile Jacque (French, 1813-1894)
Oil on cardboard
Signed lower left
10 1/2 x 13 1/2 (19 x 16 framed) inches
 
A favorite subject and rare study by one of the Barbizon's Schools most accomplished painters. The execution is incredibly sensitive and the intensity of a well-studied subject is abundant. 
 
Though a painter from the Barbizon School, Charles Emil Jacque was heavily influenced by 17th century Dutch landscape traditions. He was associated with such Barbizon luminaries as Theodore Rousseau and Francois Millet.
 
Jacque began his training in etching rather than painting, as an apprentice to a map engraver. In this area, Jacque was unparalleled among his colleagues in the Barbizon school. 
 
During the 1840s, he and his friend, Jean-Francois Millet moved to the village of Barbizon where they felt they could more realistically portray nature.  Jacque bought a house there and, influenced by Diaz's technique and Millet's themes, found his inspiration in hen-houses, pigsties and flocks of sheep at pasture.  He was also involved in non-artistic activities, such as land speculation and poultry breeding, about which he wrote a book, Le Poulailler, monographie "Des Poules Indigènes et Exotiques," published in 1848.  He left Barbizon in 1854 and continued to paint in the outskirts of Paris until he died on May 7, 1894.
 
A very brief list of major collections: 
Baltimore Museum of Art, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Cincinnati Art Museum, National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh, Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, and Philadelphia Museum of Art and, of course, at the Musée du Louvre and Musée d’Orsay in Paris.