An Alpine landscape with figures bathing and fishermen in their boats nearby

Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld was the first landscape painter to be admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, in 1823. His works, which were avidly sought by important patrons, among them King Louis XVIII, epitomize Neoclassical landscape painting in the rigorous compositional order of his bucolic subjects. This painting probably derives from a study made directly from nature. The diminutive figures may be by one of the many artists, including Guillaume Lethière, Carle Vernet, François Gérard and Louis-Léopold Boilly, with whom Bidauld is known to have collaborated.