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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné under number 253bis currently being prepared by Mr Pierre Miquel.
Narcisse Diaz was one of the main members of the group of artists known as the Barbizon schol. This group of French painters was largely associated with the Forest of Fontainebleu near the village of Barbizon and they have commonly been regarded as an important artistic link between the classicising landscapes of the 18th century and the plein-air work of the Impressionists.
In the present work the human figure is almost incidental in comparison with the interest which Diaz has shown in his attempts to capture the vitality of nature. Although Diaz often executed minutely detailed works on the spot he also often reworked similar compositions, and the present work, with its central focus of the shimmering pond surrounded by a line of oak trees, recalls a finished canvas, Pond under the oaks, in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Narcisse Diaz was one of the main members of the group of artists known as the Barbizon schol. This group of French painters was largely associated with the Forest of Fontainebleu near the village of Barbizon and they have commonly been regarded as an important artistic link between the classicising landscapes of the 18th century and the plein-air work of the Impressionists.
In the present work the human figure is almost incidental in comparison with the interest which Diaz has shown in his attempts to capture the vitality of nature. Although Diaz often executed minutely detailed works on the spot he also often reworked similar compositions, and the present work, with its central focus of the shimmering pond surrounded by a line of oak trees, recalls a finished canvas, Pond under the oaks, in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.