In April 1865, Monet moved for a year to Chailly, a village close to Barbizon, where he had stayed on previous visits to the Forest of Fontainebleau in 1863 and 1864. The Bodmer Oak, a subject treated by Corot and other Barbizon School painters, was a particular favorite of Karl Bodmer, whose painting of the tree was shown in the Salon of 1850. This is one of at least five paintings of 1865 that anticipate Monet's The Luncheon on the Grass, an immense painting that now survives in its two fragments (Musée d'Orsay and the Eknayan Collection, Paris). It may have been done when Monet was searching for a suitable landscape setting for the lifesize picnic scene.

Open full-size image