The Two Great Oaks

1854

The two trees mentioned in the title of this painting are prominent features in an otherwise unremarkable landscape. Diaz based the scene on a stretch of flat, scrub-covered terrain in the forest of Fontainebleau. He arranged the elements of the composition around the pond in the center, highlighting the patch of water and the figure seated at its edge.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	16 3/4 x 22 1/4 in. (42.5 x 56.5 cm) Frame: 25 7/8 x 31 1/2 x 3 3/8 in. (65.7 x 80 x 8.6 cm)
Object Number	1955.714
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, The Two Great Oaks, 1854, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.714

Select Bibliography

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five, Supplement: South Gallery. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1959. Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

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Provenance

Madame Paradis, Paris, sold to Boussod, Valadon, 4 Nov. 1896, as Les deux grands chênes; [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, sold to Gentien, 18 Dec. 1896]; Gentien, Paris (1896–1901, sold to Boussod, Valadon, 16 Mar. 1901); [Boussod, Valadon, Paris, sold to Stotesbury, 11 May 1901];¹ Edward T. Stotesbury, Philadelphia (1901–possibly until d. 1938); E. L. Lueder, New York; [John Levy Galleries, New York, sold to Clark, 11 Mar. 1940]; Robert Sterling Clark (1940–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. The transactions with Boussod, Valadon are recorded in Goupil Stock Books, book 14, p. 112, no. 24601, and p. 276, no. 27070. “BVC 27070” is written on the stretcher of this painting.