Constant Troyon

Born Aug. 28, 1810, in Sèvres; died Mar. 20,1865, in Paris. French painter of the Barbizon school.

Troyon started his career as a porcelain painter. He later became acquainted with T. Rousseau and J. Dupré and, on a trip in 1847 to Belgium and Holland, saw the works of P. Potter and A. Cuyp. As a result, he turned to the realistic depiction of the French countryside. Working near Fontainebleau and, beginning in 1852, in Normandy, Troyon painted landscapes profoundly democratic in subject matter and bathed in light and air; usually large figures of animals are depicted in the foreground. Notable examples include Departure for Market (1859; the Hermitage, Leningrad), The Return of the Flock (the Hermitage), and Return to the Farm (The Louvre, Paris).