The Meeting in the Woods (La Rencontre du bosquet)

Executed as a lithograph, Corot employed swift, sketch‑like strokes to suggest light and atmosphere rather than precise rendering. The thin, rough bark of the trees and the lightly indicated ground are achieved through varied pressure on the stone, creating tonal subtleties that echo his plein‑air sensibility while retaining a classical compositional balance.

Created in the year of the Franco‑Prussian War, the work reflects Corot’s late‑career interest in printmaking. It was issued shortly after the artist’s death in 1875 and circulated among collectors of French landscape prints, eventually entering museum collections that emphasize 19th‑century graphic art.

Corot’s lithographs occupy a transitional position between the disciplined Neo‑Classical landscape tradition and the emerging Impressionist focus on direct observation. *The Meeting in the Woods* exemplifies his role in bridging these approaches, using the immediacy of lithography to capture fleeting light effects that would later be central to Impressionist practice.