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Stormy Sky over Landscape with Distant Church

Jean-Michel Cels

European Art

Jean-Michel Cels’s rendering of a stormy sky includes a notation of when it was painted—11 a.m.—in the lower left corner, underscoring the fleeting nature of time and of the specific atmospheric condition he depicted.
MEDIUM Oil on bluish-gray laid chain paper
  • Place Made: Belgium
  • DATES July 1838
    DIMENSIONS 6 7/8 × 11 3/8 in. (17.5 × 28.9 cm) frame: 12 1/2 × 17 × 2 1/2 in. (31.8 × 43.2 × 6.4 cm)  (show scale)
    INSCRIPTIONS Lower left: "Juillet 1838/11 heures du matin"
    COLLECTIONS European Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 1998.26
    CREDIT LINE Healy Purchase Fund B
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Jean-Michel Cels (The Hague, Netherlands, 1819–1894, Brussels, Belgium). Stormy Sky over Landscape with Distant Church, July 1838. Oil on bluish-gray laid chain paper, 6 7/8 × 11 3/8 in. (17.5 × 28.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Healy Purchase Fund B, 1998.26 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1998.26_framed_SL1.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 1998.26_framed_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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