Paisagem à Beira do Rio Lez

Frederic Bazille finished this river landscape near his native Montpellier in the summer of 1870, telling his father in a letter that he had just about completed a large landscape. It was the last painting he would complete. Two weeks later the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Bazille, who came from a comfortable family and might easily have stayed clear of it, enlisted in August in a Zouave regiment. On 28 November, at the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande, he took command after his officer was wounded and led an assault on the Prussian line. He was hit twice and killed. He was 28. His close friends Monet and Renoir were only starting to make their name, and the quiet green riverbank here is among the last things this early Impressionist ever set down.