Vue du parc Montsouris, le kiosque

Parc Montsouris was cut into the southern edge of Paris during the rebuilding of the city under Napoleon III and opened in the 1870s, on ground that had been quarried for stone. Rousseau lived a short walk from it in the 14th arrondissement, and for 22 years he had worked the toll gates on that same edge of the city, collecting duty on wine and goods coming in. He painted the park around 1908, near the end of his life. The strollers in front of the bandstand are set out flat and side by side, so they read as if placed on a stage, with the lake and the trees behind them as scenery. Picasso and his circle gave a banquet in his honour in Montmartre that same year. He died in 1910, at 66.