Henri Fantin-Latour is primarily known for his sensitively observed and brilliantly painted still lifes, which were avidly collected in Britain and America during the artist’s lifetime. Beyond these, he made highly original portrait pictures and a large number of lithographs and drawings. He was trained by his father and studied in Gustave Courbet’s studio in 1836. While he was friends with a number of the Impressionists, and exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863, he never participated in any Impressionist exhibitions and continued showing his work at the Salon. The majority of the artist’s drawings depict portraits, nude studies or mythological subjects, and, as such, the present drawing is rather exceptional in the artist’s drawn œuvre. With subtle and spare use of the chalk, Fantin-Latour brings to life a group of trees in an almost abstract composition. The compositions do not seem to relate to any of the artist’s known prints or paintings, and the size of the drawings as well as the unfinished sketch of a house in the next drawing seem to suggest that they are pages from a sketchbook. The work remained in the artist’s studio until his death when his widow had a stamp replicating the artist’s signature applied to all of the artist’s drawings found in the studio.