Cottage in a Clump of Trees

Village houses and farms half hidden under trees were a motif Théodore Rousseau painted many times, in the Forest of Fontainebleau and in the countryside further south and west. This small study, about 20 by 28 centimetres, is painted in oil on paperboard, a light and cheap support that let a painter work quickly, out of doors or in the studio, without committing a canvas. Here a cottage sits inside a dense clump of trees. The museum gives the picture no date and records little of its history before 1943, when it came to Boston as a gift from Mrs. George H. Davenport.