An Old Chapel in a Valley

Perhaps painted about 1835, when the young artist had already begun to establish his reputation as an innovative landscape painter, this study retains the tight brushwork and marked contrasts in tone of his earlier work. The view has not been identified with any degree of certainty but it must be the product of one of Rousseau’s frequent sketching tours outside Paris. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Notes from the contributor:
Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1903