The Forest in Winter at Sunset

Théodore Rousseau, ca. 1846–67

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Let your eyes adjust to the dark, then follow the tangle of branches toward the red light low in the sky.

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This large canvas, more than two and a half meters wide, shows bare winter trees against a low red sunset. The Met dates it between about 1846 and 1867, the year Rousseau died. Dark browns fill most of the surface, and the light shows only through the gaps between the trunks.

Oil on canvas · 64 x 102 3/8 in. (162.6 x 260 cm · The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Barbizon School

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Forest in Winter at Sunset

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Details and source

Museum title: The Forest in Winter at Sunset
Artist: Théodore Rousseau (French, Paris 1812–1867 Barbizon)
Date: ca. 1846–67
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 64 x 102 3/8 in. (162.6 x 260 cm)
Credit line: Gift of P. A. B. Widener, 1911
Image license: CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist’s life 1812–1867

Barbizon School c. 1830–1870

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.