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"Edge of the Forest" represents a group of overarching trees in the forest with a light opening to the right. Diaz frequently represented specific locations, such as the ancient wood of Bas Bréau or the Vallée de la Solle, but this site cannot as yet be identified with any certainty and may be one of Diaz's more generic views. Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña is perhaps the supreme colorist of the Barbizon school. The son of Spanish emigrés, he grew up in the Bordeaux and trained as a porcelain painter while also taking lessons from Jacques-Louis David's pupil François Souchon. Over the years, he developed his reputation as a painter of rich scintillating color, and his pictures were compared by Théophile Thoré to "piles of precious stones," (Paris, 1844). During a long, commercially successful career, he produced a wide variety of mythological, religious, and genre scenes as well as landscapes of the Forest of Fontainebleau. His mastery of color was much admired by a younger generation of artists.