Lake of Geneva (Lac Leman)

The name Henri Rousseau is painted in the lower left corner of this small panel, about 26 by 35 centimetres, a view of Lake Geneva, the lake the French call Léman. The museum does not accept it as his. It catalogues the picture as the work of an imitator, an unknown painter working in Rousseau's manner. The panel reached Boston through John Taylor Spaulding, a collector best known for Japanese prints and French paintings, who lent it to the museum in May 1931 and left it there with the rest of his collection when he died in 1948. It carries no date, and the museum's record of its owners begins with him.