Narcisse Díaz de la Peña “Nymphs in the Forest” Oil on Canvas Signed in Gilt Frame

Narcisse Díaz de la Peña, “Nymphs in the Forest”. Oil on canvas signed “Diaz” lower left. In its original gilded wooden frame bearing the name “Diaz 1807-1876” on a brass plate.

Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña (Bordeaux, August 25, 1807 – Menton, November 18, 1876) was a French painter of the Barbizon school.

French of Spanish origin, Narcisse Díaz de la Peña worked for a time in a porcelain factory before dedicating himself entirely to painting. From his first participation in the Salon, in 1831, he achieved great success thanks to his representations of gallant and very imaginative scenes. Despite the success of his nymphs, the artist soon showed a weakness for landscapes and joined his friends Jules Dupré and Théodore Rousseau in Barbizon. He became a regular visitor to the forest of Fontainebleau where he revealed all his great mastery in capturing, with a sparkling touch and the use of pure colors, the effects of light between the branches and in the undergrowth.

Diaz left a considerable and very varied oeuvre, achieving an original synthesis between the Barbizon landscape, the oriental taste and the frivolity of his time.

His landscapes – the essence of his work – are above all the forest: the painter loves to paint forest interiors marked by the contrast between shadow and light, by the shimmer of the foliage, setting up his easel in Bas-Bréau, Apremont and in the places decorated with lakes and clearings near the village of Barbizon. His pastoral scenes express the carnal desire that permeates the bathers, the nudes, the nymphs and cupids, the lascivious and voluptuous women.
A true artist with a fiery temperament, Diaz’s art is not imitation, but creation. Admired by Monet and Monticelli, creator of light and color, the painter prefigures in his work a new way of capturing light. Tachista, he intentionally blurs the details of the form by superimposing the colors and breaks down the effect of light by separating each brush stroke. Pre-Impressionist – from 1872 to 1874 his studies have all the characteristic features of emerging Impressionism – virtuoso of the palette, Narcisse Diaz dazzles the eye with all the seductions of light and the charm of a great colorist.

This beautiful painting, which comes to us from a private French collection, belongs to one of the highest moments of Diaz’s artistic production. In it the forest and the carnal voluptuousness of his characters meet: at the edge of the forest, near a pond, a half-naked nymph rests, observing the water by swinging one foot. Barely covered by an oriental shawl, her very white skin and her red hair shine in contrast with the dark forest that invades her. Soft and opulent, in her the nymph and the odalisque merge. Behind her a winged putto observes her while on the other side two companions are busy observing a swan.

The painting is in its original canvas. It has been the subject of a professional restoration with cleaning and consolidation of a small part of the slightly damaged canvas. During the cleaning, the originality of the signature was verified, also photographed with a microscope.

For enthusiasts, Diaz’s house can still be admired today in Barbizon, overlooking the Grande rue.

Measurements
canvas cm 60 x 50
frame cm 80 x 70