Suzette (Peasant Girl)
Artist
Theodore Robinson
CultureAmerican
Date1879
MediumChalk on paper, mounted on board
Dimensions20 5/8 x 12 7/8 in. (52.4 x 32.7 cm)
Overall, Frame: 30 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 2 in. (77.5 x 54.6 x 5.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 30 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 2 in. (77.5 x 54.6 x 5.1 cm)
InscribedSigned and dated, in black chalk, lower left: ;
Theo. Robinson ;
1879
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number71.2155
Not on view
DescriptionThis is a black chalk drawing with white heightening, on grayish blue paper, mounted on board. It depicts a young girl, turned to the right, in a simple frock sewing outdoors. She wears a long braid and stands in wooden shoes, looking downward at her work.Label TextTheodore Robinson American (1852-1896) Suzette (Peasant Girl), 1879 Black chalk with white heightening, on grayish blue paper, mounted on board Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2155 In 1887, Theodore Robinson met Claude Monet in the village of Giverny, west of Paris. Influenced by the great French Impressionist painter, Robinson quickly began to produce the Impressionist landscapes and figurative subjects that would make him a leader of that style among American painters. Robinson's wistful black chalk drawing, Suzette, was produced earlier in his career, during his first visit to France (1876-79), and thus before his full conversion to Impressionism. At that time, he visited the village of Barbizon, southeast of Paris, where he responded to the rustic realism and humble peasant subjects of Jean-François Millet and other Barbizon artists. Both the gentle realism of Robinson's drawing and its rural subject-a French peasant girl sewing out-of-doors-immediately bring Millet's art to mind, as can be seen by comparing the drawing here to Millet's Peasant Woman Guarding Her Cow, on view in the same gallery. Edited By: DS Edited Date: 08/2005 Approved By: MHM Approval Date: 10/13/2005ProvenanceGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to The Chrysler Museum, 1971. Exhibition History"One Hundred Drawings in The Chrysler Museum at Norfolk," Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., March 2 - May 6, 1979. (Exh. cat. no. 88) "19th and 20th Century Drawings from the Permanent Collection," Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., November 30, 1994 - January 13, 1985. "Master Drawings at the Chrysler Museum," Small Changing Gallery, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., February 26 - April 23, 1989. "Special Exhibition," Prints and Drawings Gallery, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., Fall 1989. "Images of Childhood from The Chrysler Museum," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., July 29 - September 16, 1990. "Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006. Published ReferencesEric M. Zafran, _One Hundred Drawings in the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk_, exh. cat., The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., 1979, 32-33, cat. no. 88. _The Chrysler Museum: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Norfolk, Virginia_, (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1982), 122. ISBN: 0940744376 Joyce M. Szabo, "Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Drawings from the Permanent Collection," _The Chrysler Museum Bulletin_ 15 (January 1985): cover and inside story. Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 114, no. 69. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6
Mid 16th century
