Provenance:

Jean Dolent, February 1910, No. 7.
Collection Louis Le Sidaner;
Drouot, Paris, 11 June 1932, lot 50;
Roland, Browse and Deblanco, London;
Sir William Ackroyd

Exhibited:

Musée Cholet, 1949

Carriere was a Symbolist painter, an intimate friend of Rodin, Gaugin, and of the poet Verlaine. More spiritual than realistic, he had a distinctive grey-brown palette with blushes of tea-rose pink and apricot; the combination had a ghostly effect in his delicate earlier paintings, whilst later works appear submerged in swirling monochrome fogs.

In 1877-8 Carriere spent a miserable, dark winter in Stockwell, South London, designing greetings cards and avoiding the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War. Like many French artists, he was inspired by Turner.