A Village in a Valley
late 1820s
Medium
Oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Dimensions
9 1/8 x 16 in. (23.2 x 40.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931
Accession Number
32.100.133
Tags
Art Historical Context
Théodore Rousseau’s *A Village in a Valley*, painted in the late 1820s, captures a tranquil rural scene with the young artist’s characteristic sensitivity to light and atmosphere. At roughly sixteen to eighteen years old, Rousseau was already exploring the French countryside, recording modest villages nestled among rolling hills. The small scale—barely nine by sixteen inches—suggests an intimate, on-the-spot study rather than a grand studio composition. The work’s medium, oil on paper mounted on canvas, is especially telling. Lightweight and portable, such supports allowed artists to work dir...
About the Artist
Théodore Rousseau · 1812–1867
Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867) was a French landscape painter and the leading figure of the Barbizon School, the group of artists who settled in the village of Barbizon near the Forest of Fontainebleau to paint directly from nature. Born in Paris, he showed precocious talent and studied under the academic painters Charles Rémond and Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, but quickly rejected classical landsca...