Spring at Fontainebleau

Chittussi often painted the Fontainebleau Forest in different seasons. The Autumn is a late variant of his 1879 picture The Heath in the Fontainebleau Forest. There are some unmistakable modifications in the composition of the picture: it is more polished than the original painting and various sketches of this motif. Chittussi painted the companion picture of Spring on his visit of France in 1886. The two paintings lack the original freshness and immediacy of the early plein-air studies, being more of the nature of elegant, carefully painted studio pictures.