id: 150077 accession number: 1980.282 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1980.282 updated: 2023-12-04 03:04:52.555000 Lazarillo de Tormes and His Blind Master, before 1880. Théodule Ribot (French, 1823–1891). Oil on fabric; framed: 108 x 90 x 7 cm (42 1/2 x 35 7/16 x 2 3/4 in.); unframed: 91.5 x 73.7 cm (36 x 29 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Noah L. Butkin 1980.282 title: Lazarillo de Tormes and His Blind Master title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: before 1880 creation date earliest: 1870 creation date latest: 1880 current location: creditline: Bequest of Noah L. Butkin copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Théodule Ribot (French, 1823–1891) - artist Théodule Ribot first tried to study art at the trade school in Châlons, École des Arts et Métiers. When his father died in 1840, Ribot had to help support his family. He worked as a bookkeeper in Rouen, married early, and left for Paris in 1845. There he did various jobs, studied in the atelier of Auguste-Barthélémy Glaize (1807-1893), and, in 1848, went to Algeria to work as a foreman for three years. Back in Paris, he befriended the painter Bonvin (q.v.), who held an exhibition of pictures by his friends in his studio in 1859. These artists, including Fantin-Latour (q.v.), Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), Antoine Vollon (1833-1900), and J. A. M. Whistler (1834-1903), depicted ordinary subjects from their immediate environments without relying on narrative, and they generally used somber colors, limited illumination, and broader brushwork that contrasted with academic standards and methods. Their work elicited a positive response from Courbet (q.v.), considered the father of realism in France. Ribot first exhibited at a Paris Salon in 1861, when his kitchen scenes won generally favorable reviews. To underscore a humble life-style for the artist, his early biographers claim that the dark, inky backgrounds of his pictures were the result of Ribot's painting by lamplight in his free evenings at home. He continued to depict working-class and peasant subjects in a style variously described as Dutch or Spanish by critics, and he participated in the Salons and provincial and international art exhibitions. Always interested in expanding exhibition opportunities for independent painters like himself, he signed a petition in 1863 that decried the Salon jury's numerous rejections that year and contributed to the official decision to hold the Salon des Refusés. Ribot sold his pictures through art galleries in Paris, such as those of Louis Martinet, Alfred Cadart, and Bernheim Jeune, and the French state bought his St. Sebastian (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) in 1865. In 1878 he was named to the Legion of Honor. The following year a serious illness kept Ribot from painting for two years, and his production fell off after this period. In 1884 his fellow artists, including Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), Boudin (q.v.), Fantin-Latour, Monet (q.v.), Puvis de Chavannes (q.v.), and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), held a banquet in his honor and gave him a medal inscribed "To Théodule Ribot, the independent painter." It is ironic, then, that the year after his death a major retrospective exhibition was organized at the official art school, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. --- measurements: Framed: 108 x 90 x 7 cm (42 1/2 x 35 7/16 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 91.5 x 73.7 cm (36 x 29 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed lower left: t. Ribot translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1980 opening date: 1981-06-24T04:00:00 Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981). title: Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting opening date: 2003-02-25T00:00:00 Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 25-June 29, 2003). title: Théodule Ribot (1823-1891): A Delightful Darkness opening date: 2021-10-16T04:00:00 Théodule Ribot (1823-1891): A Delightful Darkness. Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France (October 16, 2021-January 2, 2022) https://www.augustins.org/en/exhibition-theodule-ribot; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, Marseille, France (February 10-May 15, 2022); Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, Caen, France (organizer) (June 11-October 2, 2022) https://mba.caen.fr/exposition/theodule-ribot. --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Paris, Galeries de L'Art. Th. Ribot, Exposition Générale de ses oeuvres (1880), not in cat. (according to Weisberg 1976).
Paris, Galerie Bernheim Jeune. Exposition T. Ribot (1890), 19, L'aveugle à la cruche verte et l'enfant, app. à M. Oppenheim; 55, no. 227 bis, L'aveugle, app. à M. Oppenheim.
Possibly Paris, Bernheim Jeune & Cie. Exposition Ribot (2-8 February 1911), no. 24, L'aveugle.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2/25/2003 - 6/8/2003): "Manet/Velazquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting", exh. cat. no 198, p.518, fig. 14.80, p. 400. --- PROVENANCE (E. Oppenheim sale, Hôtel Drouot, May 11, 1897, no. 22, unsold date: 1897 footnotes: *
"E. Oppenheim" may refer to Eduard Freiherr von Oppenheim of the German banking family.  Eduard’s brother Albert von Oppenheim was an avid art collector, whereas Eduard was chiefly interested in horse-breeding and horseracing.  He did own works of art, but the archives of the Bankhaus Sal. Oppenheim contain no inventory or correspondence indicating that the Ribot was owned by Eduard or that his collection was sold in 1897 at Hôtel Drouot (Gabriele Teichmann, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Jan. 5, 2016).  According to Hôtel Drouot's annotated copy of the 1897 sale catalogue , the painting failed to sell.  In the catalogue, as well as those of the 1918 and 1973 auctions, the CMA painting is titled “L'aveugle et don Guzman d'Alfarache.”  After Ribot’s death, the painting acquired this title (“The Blind Man and Don Guzman d’Alfaranche”), a reference to Mateo Alemán’s novel Guzman de Alfarache (1599).  The subject of the painting, however, clearly derives from a passage in the earlier novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554).  The discrepancy between title and subject likely stems from the moralizing plot and happier ending of Guzman d’Alfarache, which was apparently more agreeable and memorable to a wider audience.
citations: (Possibly Bernheim-Jeune, Paris) date: 1911 footnotes: *
A 1911 exhibition of works by Ribot at Bernheim-June includes a painting titled L’Aveugle for which no dimensions or descriptions are provided.  The absence of a Bernheim-Jeune stock number on the back of the painting, frame, or stretcher make it difficult to confirm whether or not the CMA picture was the one in the Bernheim-Jeune catalogue.  
citations: (Sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, December 4-5, 1918, no. 8) date: 1918 footnotes: citations: (Hôtel Drouot, Nov. 7, 1973 [no lot number, reproduced on page 3], sold to Peter Wengraf on behalf of Noah L. and Muriel S. Butkin) date: 1973 footnotes: citations: Noah L. [1918-1980] and Muriel S. Butkin [1915-2008], Cleveland, OH, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art as a result of disclaimer by Muriel S. Butkin date: 1973-1980 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1980- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Hôtel Drouot. Catalogue de tableaux modernes et dessins. May 11, 1897. page number: url: Laurence Mille, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Oct. 27, 2015, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Exposition Ribot. Paris: Bernheim-Jeune, 1911. page number: url:
Galerie Georges Petit. Catalogue des tableaux modernes par Bail, Berchère, Boudin, Jules Breton, Cazin, Chaplin... Dec. 4-5, 1918. page number: url: Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux anciens et du XIXe siècle, objets d'art et d'ameublement, meubles et sièges anciens. Nov. 7, 1973. page number: url: Peter Wengraf, letter to Mlle. Harranger, Nov. 13, 1977, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Estate of Noah L. Butkin, Bequests to Cleveland Museum of Art as a result of disclaimer by Murel S. Butkin. Estates, Gifts, and Funds, Series 1, Box 2:14. Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: Peter Wengraf, letter to Mlle. Harranger, Nov. 13, 1977, in CMA curatorial file. page number: url: Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 546-548, Vol. II, no. 192 url: Delapierre, Emmanuelle. "Paysages." In Théodule Ribot, 1823-1891: Une Délicieuse Obscurité. Emmanuelle Delapierre, Luc Georget, Gabriel Weisberg, eds., 182-193. Paris: LienArt, 2021. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 218-219, no. 80 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.282/1980.282_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.282/1980.282_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.282/1980.282_full.tif