1862
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Study of a Plant, Possibly Thistle is a 1862 by Léon Bonvin, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a single thistle plant, leaves sharp and purple buds just opening, drawn on plain paper. Bonvin worked in a Paris inn by day and painted by lamplight at night. He never sold a single piece in his lifetime. This quiet study was made for himself, not a buyer. For more works that feel like private notebooks, look up Léon Bonvin (French, 1834–1866).
Neglected within his own time, the watercolors of Bonvin have only come to be fully appreciated in the late 20th century. An artist with little formal training, Bonvin earned a living working in his family’s inn in Vaugirard, on the outskirts of Paris. The landscape near his home and studies of the inn’s garden became his themes.
This watercolor was made after the year of Léon Bonvin's marriage, a time when he was increasingly trying to make a living from his art.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Charles Léon Bonvin (February 28, 1834 – January 30, 1866) was a French watercolor artist known for genre painting, realist still life and delicate and melancholic landscapes.
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