Charles Émile Jacque

Charles Jacque was one of the earliest members of the Barbizon School, working in the area from about 1841 and being accredited with persuading his friend Millet to move to the town of Barbizon in 1849. Like his friends, Daubigny, Millet, and Rousseau, Charles Jacque was inspired by the rural landscapes and peasant life, particularly around the area of the forest of Fontainbleau. Although Charles Jacque’s natural medium was etching or engraving, rather than painting, the empathy which he showed towards the depiction of natural light in landscape and simple peasant life was the very essence of the Barbizon ideal.

Trained initially as an engraver of maps, Charles Jacque only began to follow his calling as an artist in 1841. He exhibited original etchings at the Paris Salon from the early 1840’s and it was through these works, rather than his paintings, that he first achieved public recognition. By the year 1848 Charles Jacque had created over 300 etchings, impressions of many of which are now very rare. After this date he all but abandoned etching until 1864, when he began afresh; however, all but a few of his later etchings are worked on a much larger scale and with a comparatively coarse line. Charles Jacque’s small early plates from the 1840’s display a freshness and vitality which has always appealed to true connoisseurs of etchings.