DIAZ DE LA PEÑA, N.-V.

Narcisse Diaz, a French painter of Spanish parentage, exhibited at the Salon de Paris from 1831. Until 1844 his paintings concentrate on the traditional mythological and oriental sources, sometimes with flamboyance. From 1835, Diaz visited the Forest of Fontainebleau and his late landscapes are inspired by his sojourns in the Forest. These later works, of which the present picture (dated 1871) is one, display a sometimes tormented aspect of nature reminiscent of the 17th century Dutch landscape painter Salomon van Ruysdael.

His paintings can be found in a number of international Museums including the Musée d'Orsay, Paris; The Hermitage, St. Petersburg; The Pushkin Museum, Moscow; The Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and The Louvre, Paris.