Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
Edge of the Forest
(18th and 19th Centuries )
"Edge of the Forest" represents a group of overarching trees in the forest with a light opening to the right. Diaz frequently represented specific locations, such as the ancient wood of Bas Bréau or the Vallée de la Solle, but this site cannot as yet be identified with any certainty and may be one of Diaz's more generic views.
Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña is perhaps the supreme colorist of the Barbizon school. The son of Spanish emigrés, he grew up in the Bordeaux and trained as a porcelain painter while also taking lessons from Jacques-Louis David's pupil François Souchon. Over the years, he developed his reputation as a painter of rich scintillating color, and his pictures were compared by Théophile Thoré to "piles of precious stones," (Paris, 1844). During a long, commercially successful career, he produced a wide variety of mythological, religious, and genre scenes as well as landscapes of the Forest of Fontainebleau. His mastery of color was much admired by a younger generation of artists.
Inscription
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
William T. Walters, Baltimore, before 1884 [1] [mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
[1] number 186 in the catalogue "Collection of W. T. Walters" (1884)
Exhibitions
| 2024-2025 | Reinstallation 2024: Art and Process. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. |
| 2005-2006 | The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma. |
| 1998-1999 | Botanical Delights: Floral Motifs in 19th-Century Art. Government House, Annapolis; Strathmore Hall Art Center, North Bethesda; Academy Art Museum, Easton. |
| 1998-1999 | A Discerning Eye: Nineteenth-century Drawings and Watercolors. Academy Art Museum, Easton. |
| 1997-1998 | French Master Drawings. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
| 1992 | French Masterworks on Paper. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
| 1990 | Illuminations: Images of Landscape in France, 1855-1885. The Heckscher Museum, Huntington; The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis. |
| 1983 | A Connoisseur's Portfolio: Nineteenth-century Drawings and Watercolors in the Walters Art Gallery. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
| 1979 | A Supple Brush: The Flowering of Continental Watercolors. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. |
| 1977-1978 | From Delacroix to Cézanne: French Watercolor Landscapes of the Nineteenth Century. Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park; Speed Art Museum, Louisville; The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. |
Conservation
| Date | Description | Narrative |
|---|---|---|
| 9/14/1989 | Loan Consideration | examined for loan |
| 2/13/1990 | Treatment | mounted; re-housed |
| 1/1/2002 | Treatment | examined for exhibition; re-housed; mounted; other |
| 9/22/2004 | Treatment | stabilized |
Geographies
France (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 5 7/8 x W: 9 in. (15 x 22.9 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by William T. Walters, before 1879
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.851