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During the first half of his career, Corot created paintings that combined the orderly, rational style of French Neoclassicism with a keen observation of nature that foreshadowed the Barbizon School.

This canvas, however, has the cool tonalities and soft focus of his late work. It was painted at his family property in Ville d'Avray, in the countryside west of Paris. In contrast to Impressionist pictures of the 1870s that show the objective depiction of natural light, Corot's paintings of this era capture an idealized reverie of nature bathed in the silvery light of a dream.