Los cuatro momentos del día: Tarde

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, a painter of eastern subjects and a friend of Corot's, had bought a house on the rue de France in Fontainebleau and wanted something for the walls of his studio. Corot painted him four panels, one for each part of the day, and by the account that came down with them he finished all four in about a week, to Decamps's astonishment. This is the third, evening, with the colour at its deepest, two women out in a boat near the shore, one of them standing and holding what is probably a mandolin, and a hooded figure on the bank turned away from them. Decamps had little time to live with them. He died in 1860, thrown from his horse in the forest at Fontainebleau. The four panels stayed together, and the National Gallery bought the set in 2014.