Narcisse-Virgilio Diaz de la Peña, 'Cows at a Pool', possibly 1870s

A group of four cows drink at a pool set in a flat grassy plain. A few trees are dotted on the horizon. The cows form a focal point in the composition, their warm brown and ochre tones creating a contrast with the surrounding landscape. The sky is overcast yet the plain itself is painted in fresh greens. The whole is broadly and swiftly painted, the landscape rendered in long strokes of different greens, often with two separate colours overlaid wet-in-wet. Diaz used more delicate vertical sweeping strokes of fluid paint to depict the rushes and grasses to the right of the pool.

Painted quickly, this is typical of the kind of sketch Diaz would have dashed off, perhaps for a friend. Although the scene was undoubtedly painted from memory, it is probably based on the flat plains around the village of Barbizon.