Moonrise at Auvers or Return of the Flock

Daubigny was a pre-eminent painter of the Barbizon School and his works were avidly sought by collectors to the same extent as those of Corot.


This painting is undoubtedly the most important Daubigny to enter a Montreal collection. It had been part of the important Secrétan collection, which had acquired Jean-François Millet’s The Angelus, the most celebrated painting of the era. Daubigny’s painting received flattering comments, including this description by Zola during the 1878 Paris World’s Fair: "look at [...] any landscape by Daubigny: it is the very soul of nature that speaks to you. The exhibition includes a magnificent painting, Moonrise at Auvers (Seine-et-Oise) . Night has just fallen and a transparent shadow veils the fields as the full moon rises in a cloudless sky. You can sense the silent shimmer of evening, make out the last sounds of the somnolent fields. It creates the impression of a limpid grandeur, of a tranquility charged with life. Behold the Realist style, made to communicate what is.”