Henri Rouart was not only a collector and patron of the Impressionists but he was also an artist in his own right. He never tried to promote his painting and dedicated his time to recommend his impressionist friends works. Nevertheless, he exhibited his landscapes at the Salon but left quickly from this official event and joined the Salon des Refusés in 1873. As a faithful friend of Edgar Degas, he exhibited alongside him at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. No solo exhibition was realised during his lifetime. Staying voluntarily behind the scene, it was not until 1912, the year of his death, that a monographic exhibition of his works took place at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris.

It’s only in 1933, at the occasion of an exhibition dedicated to Rouart at the Galerie Rosenberg in Paris, that he was recognised by the general public, thanks in part to the foreword by Paul Valéry who admirably celebrated the artist’s work.

Between 1864 and 1867, he often went to Barbizon and started painting with the advice of Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet, he also sought the advice of Camille Corot whose works he collected.

Like Degas, he described himself as an independent artist and despite his tendency for modern subject matter his paintings were closer to those of Corot and the Barbizon school.

This painting realized in Brittany, most probably near Lamballe where Rouart used to stay during the summer since 1866, is between the Barbizon school and Impressionism and shows the two influences in the artist’s work.

In 2012, his great grandson, Jean Dominique Rey, curator of the Musée Marmottan organized an exhibition dedicated to the painter and described his work as: “a variation of green, synthesis of light and shadow”.