Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña was a painter and lithographer closely linked with the landscape painters of the Barbizon School, though his influences varied widely. Diaz began his training as a painter in the porcelain factory in Sèvres, where he worked alongside and befriended Jules-Louis Dupré. Though his early independent works had mythological, exotic, or literary subjects, Diaz was most devoted to landscape and nature painting. He was strongly influenced by Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Rousseau, though he is perhaps most strongly indebted to Jean-Antoine Watteau’s paintings of fêtes-galantes (the pursuits of the idle rich). Diaz’s own landscapes were characterized by vivid and dense foliage with patches of light or sky; within these setting, he frequently included groups of musicians, peasants, and gypsies.