Eugène Cuvelier was arguably the most sophisticated of the early photographers who worked within the forest of Fontainebleau, the famed outdoor studio for artists of the Barbizon School, many of whom were his friends. Camille Corot and Théodore Rousseau served as official witnesses at his wedding, and Jean-François Millet praised his “very fine photographs” in a letter to Rousseau. The photograph offered here was taken in the Jean de Paris section of Fontainebleau and shows a stand of birches, which, along with oaks and beeches, were the most visible trees in the forest. Cuvelier’s work is typified by a combination of sensitivity and objectivity that makes him a forerunner of Harry Callahan, Robert Adams, and Lewis Baltz, among other 20th century photographers.

Ulrike Gauss, compiler of the catalogue raisonné on Cuvelier’s work, locates only one other print of this image.