Women in the Garden

Four women, dressed in the height of 1860s fashion, gather in a sun-dappled garden, their white dresses catching the light. This large canvas, painted outdoors, captures a moment of leisure with remarkable immediacy. To manage its scale while working en plein air, the artist had to dig a trench to lower the canvas, allowing him to paint the upper sections from a consistent perspective. His companion, Camille Doncieux, posed for all the figures, her face subtly varied to suggest different individuals. The painting was rejected by the Salon in 1867, partly due to its perceived lack of narrative and the painter's bold, visible brushstrokes, which a judge decried as an "abominable direction." Yet, it is precisely in the treatment of light and shadow, particularly on the white fabric, that the artist explores the atmospheric effects that would define his later work.