Le Bateau-atelier, from Voyage en bateau [The Voyage by Boat]

One of the hallmarks of the Barbizon artists was their effort to capture the immediacy of their direct response to nature. In his series of sixteen prints from Voyage en bateau, characterized as an amusement for a small circle of friends, Daubigny recorded his trip down the Oise and Seine rivers. In 1857 he outfitted a small boat as a studio where he sketched some of his views, finishing them at a later date. Considered one of the "most remarkable" sheets in the album, this strongly backlit self-portrait was reprinted in contemporary monographs of the artist (1874, the year of the first Impressionist exhibition, and 1912) validating the Impressionists' firmly held belief in painting en plein air (outdoors).