Chaumière Normande, près d'Arques [Normandy Cottage, near Arques]

Huet's picturesque views of rural life in the provinces of France invoke Rembrandt's studies of similar subjects two centuries earlier. A traveling companion of the English landscape artist Richard Parks Bonington and an admirer of John Constable, Huet focused his attention on atmospheric conditions and the quality of light. With sunshine glinting off the leaves of trees and pools of light set amidst swathes of deep shadow, Huet achieved an impressive range of tonal variations that the Impressionists later emulated. His experiments with etching and those of his friends working in the forests around Paris initially linked the revival with the landscape idiom.