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Your galleryThe Marsh
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- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
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Look beneath the large tree for small figures and pale laundry, then follow the bright water toward the foreground.
Washerwomen work in this marsh and spread clothing out to dry, making the landscape a place of everyday activity. Troyon gives those figures relatively little space beneath trees and an expansive sky. Their small scale lets human work animate the scene without becoming its only subject.
Oil on canvas · 93 × 140 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Barbizon School
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Marsh
- Artist
- Constant Troyon (French, 1810–1865)
- Date
- 1840
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 93 × 140 cm (36 1/2 × 55 in.); Framed: 122 × 169 cm (48 × 66 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by David and Mary Winton Green
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.