Probably by Georges Michel, Stormy Landscape with Ruins on a Plain

In the right foreground lies the ruined shell of what must have been a grand building, of which only three of the outer walls remain. At the left a large fireplace and the base of a staircase can be seen. To the left of the ruins, stands a lone figure, bundled up in clothing that is blown to one side in the breeze. Behind the ruins the ground drops quite sharply to the plain, which is dotted with rows of trees in the manner of seventeenth-century Dutch landscapes. (One example of these paintings, which were a great influence on Georges Michel, is Jacob van Ruisdael’s A Landscape with a Ruined Castle and a Church). A bank of grey clouds hangs darkly over the horizon, building up to a threatening mass to the right of centre, with the sky lightening considerably at the left.

Michel took all of his subjects from the area around Paris, including the windmills of Montmartre and the plain of Saint-Denis. He made countless drawings in the open air, which he worked up into paintings in his studio. This painting can be associated with Michel’s third and final manner, which his biographer Alfred Sensier defined in 1873 as 'flat and monotone plains, black and sterile hills, hovels, putrid ponds, horrible ruins, miserable habitations, skies in fury, meteorological apparitions, frightening calms and glacial silences.’

Authentication of Michel’s landscapes is notoriously difficult because he never signed his works and he had a number of imitators, the most famous of whom is Baron d’Ivry (Jean-Baptiste Marie Roslin, 1775–1839). In this case, while the subject of this painting, a panoramic landscape under a stormy sky, is typical of his mature work, certain elements have led to some uncertainty as to its authorship. One such feature is the creamy, impastoed paint in the foreground, which has been applied more thickly than in most of Michel’s paintings. A second is the figure, an insubstantial form created out of patches of colour, and featureless, quite unlike Michel’s figures. Points in favour of Michel’s authorship include the strong composition and masterful sky, with its subtle shifts in light and dark, and the fact that it is painted on paper, whereas paintings by his imitators tend to be on canvas. After much examination and consultation it has been concluded (for the time being) that the original landscape was probably painted by Michel, and that at some point it was overpainted by someone else.