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John Henry Twachtman Catalogue Raisonné
An online catalogue by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D., in collaboration with the Greenwich Historical Society

Catalogue Entry

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Additional Images
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 1. Ruins of the Castle of Arques, ca. 1890s, Detroit Publishing Company, 1905, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Fig. 1. Ruins of the Castle of Arques, ca. 1890s, Detroit Publishing Company, 1905, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 2. Château d'Arques-la-Bataille, 2020.
Fig. 2. Château d'Arques-la-Bataille, 2020.
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 3. Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Description et histoire du Château d’Arques (Paris: A. Morel, 1880), p. 9.
Fig. 3. Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Description et histoire du Château d’Arques (Paris: A. Morel, 1880), p. 9.
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 4. Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Description et histoire du Château d’Arques (Paris: A. Morel, 1880), p. 7, with annotations by Philippe Gautrot.
Fig. 4. Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Description et histoire du Château d’Arques (Paris: A. Morel, 1880), p. 7, with annotations by Philippe Gautrot.
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 5. Château d'Arques-la-Bataille, view looking northeast, 2017.
Fig. 5. Château d'Arques-la-Bataille, view looking northeast, 2017.
Chateau d'Arques, ca. 1884 (OP.712). Fig. 6. Paul Huet (1803–1869), Les ruines du château et la vallée, 1839, oil on canvas, 16 1/8 x 25 5/8 in., Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans.
Fig. 6. Paul Huet (1803–1869), Les ruines du château et la vallée, 1839, oil on canvas, 16 1/8 x 25 5/8 in., Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans.
Keywords
OP.712
Chateau d'Arques
Alternate title: Normandy Landscape
ca. 1884
Oil on canvas on board
12 1/8 x 15 in. (30.8 x 38.1 cm)
Private collection
Provenance
Marjorie Twachtman Pell, the artist's daughter;
by descent in the family to present collection.
Commentary

While spending the summer of 1884 in the Normandy village of Arques-la-Bataille, Twachtman would have been well aware of the ruins of the castle, built in the eleventh century that are located on a promontory high above the town (figs. 1–3).[1] This painting reveals that he climbed up to see this impressive sight firsthand. [1] 

His view is looking north from inside the pit surrounding the castle and below the tower on its southeast corner, toward a second tower and the hills leading to Dieppe (figs. 4–5).[2] In Arques-la-Bataille, the castle was a reminder that the town had once been the proud legislative seat of the region. The best-known image of it is Paul Huet’s, Les ruines du château et la vallée, 1839 (fig. 7), a painting shown in the 1840 Paris Salon, in which the ruins are in sunlight on their high plateau, with the town in shadow far below. By contrast, Twachtman used the castle as the basis for an abstractly conceived design, balancing the vertical tower, depicted flush with the picture plane, against the horizontal hills. 

Twachtman's painting has suffered loss and surface abrasion, but it  still reveals his careful attention to what he observed, such as the grayish-pink stone of the castle walls, the thick cloud masses, and the soft turf worn down by its use for agriculture, while remaining trees and moss on the castle walls create a patterned effect across the image. The painting remains today in the family of Twachtman's daughter Marjorie, who spent her first summer in Arques-la-Bataille.

[1] Built by William of Talou, the castle was besieged and occupied by his nephew William the Conqueror. Many important events occurred within it—including Joan of Arc's retention in 1431 before she was condemned in Rouen. In the valley below the castle, the eighth and final battle in the French Wars of Religion was fought in 1589—the war was won by the royal forces of Henry IV against the Catholic League, under the command of Charles of Lorraine (the duke of Mayenne). The castle became state property in 1869 and was declared a historic monument in 1875. Sources on the castle’s history and architecture include A. Deville, Histoire du Château d’Arques (Rouen: Nicétas Periaux, 1839); Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Description et histoire du Château d’Arques (Paris: A. Morel, 1880), and Brian K. Davison, “A Survey of the Castle of Arques-la-Bataille, Seine Maritime.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 35 (1972), pp. 100–102.

[2]  I would like to thank Philippe Gautrot, founder and director of the Académie Bach, Arques-la-Bataille, for his assistance in identifying Twachtman's viewpoint in this painting. The novelist Willa Cather, who may have crossed paths with Twachtman in Cos Cob in the 1890s, passed through Arques-la-Bataille in the summer of 1902. She used the town's backyard gardens and “the green hill topped by its sprawling feudal ruin” as settings in her short story, “Eleanor’s House,” McClure’s Magazine 29 (October 1907), p. 625.