Rousseau is said to have begun this ambitious canvas in winter 1845–46 when he and his colleague Dupré were at Isle-Adam, a town on the River Oise. The scene is not of that region but rather a recollection of the woods at Bas-Bréau in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Although he may have exhibited the painting in Paris in 1847, Rousseau continued to work on it intermittently for the next twenty years. He considered this his most important painting and refused to sell it during his lifetime.

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