A turning point in Monticelli's career came when he returned to Paris in 1856, and befriended the famous French Barbizon landscape painter, Narcisse Virgilio Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876). Together, they often painted in the Fontainebleau forest. He quickly adopted Diaz's practice of introducing elegantly costumed classical figures in his landscapes. These courtly figures in garden settings à la Watteau (Antoine Watteau, 1684-1721, a French Rococo master) would become a favorite subject matter for Monticelli. Until the end of his prolific career, the artist would produce numerous variations on this theme. Rococo Revival flourished at that time of the Second Empire in France. Monticelli also painted still lives, portraits and Orientalist subjects.

Monticelli's unique style is characterized by the use of vibrant colors and thick impasto on richly textured surfaces, a style later adapted by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). He was a dazzling colorist who excelled at the play of light on fabrics or other surfaces. This particular small work represents Monticelli's best manner, important in composition and the great number of figures (ten) it contains.

After the start of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, Monticelli returned to Marseille where he remained until his death. Having been introduced to the future Impressionists during his stay in Paris, he had befriended Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) who joined him on painting trips in the countryside around Aix en Provence. Cézanne's biographers have all along acknowledged Monticelli's influence on the master's early brushwork.

Vincent van Gogh discovered Monticelli's work in Paris in 1886 and was deeply impressed. Illustrating how much Monticelli inspired Vincent van Gogh, van Gogh wrote, "Altogether I am obliged to lay the colors on thick in Monticelli's way. Sometimes I think I really am a continuation of that man." And in his 1903 memoir, Avant et Après (Paris: Ed. G. Crès et Cie, 1923), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) wrote "When he thought of Monticelli, he wept." Shortly after Monticelli's death, Vincent van Gogh and his brother Théo were instrumental in publishing the first book about Monticelli. Monticelli's reputation grew after his death and his works became part of prestigious private collections of art connoisseurs and dealers alike, as sales catalogues and numerous press articles attest. But even during his lifetime, Monticelli's works were shown to the American public, with both the Samuel P. Avery Gallery and the Cottier & Co Gallery organizing exhibitions in New York as early as 1879.

Later, Monticelli's works were shown at numerous venues around the world, including, to name a few, at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1883 (European Paintings at the 1883 Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition -- a fundraiser for the Statue of Liberty pedestal); at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900 where six works were displayed; at the New York Engineers Club in 1910; at Boston's Vose Galleries eightieth anniversary exhibition in 1921, a retrospective; at l'Orangerie in Paris in 1953, another retrospective; at New York's Paul Rosenberg Gallery in 1954; and in 1979 at the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, traveling to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto and to the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, also a retrospective exhibition.

Monticelli's works are part of the most prestigious museum collections in the world. In the United States, his works are part of the holdings of, among others, the Atlanta High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia; the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts; the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois; the Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, Ohio; the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas; the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the Ball State University Museum of Art in Muncie, Indiana; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York; the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California; the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York; the Princeton University Art Museum in Princeton, New Jersey; the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, California; the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington; and the Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, Washington.

Outside the United States, Monticelli's works can be admired, among others, at the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam; the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, United Kingdom; the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao, Spain; the Musée des Beaux Arts in Caen, France; the National Museum Wales in Cardiff, United Kingdom; the Musée National du Château in Compiègne, France; the Musée des Beaux Arts and the Musée National Magnin in Dijon, France; the Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin; the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh; the Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, Finland; the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lille, France; the National Gallery and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London; the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon, France; the Musée des Beaux Arts and the Musée Cantini in Marseille, France; the Louvre, the Musée du Quai d'Orsay and the Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner in Paris; the Musée Alfred Danicourt in Péronne, France; the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen; the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg; the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo; the Musée d'Art Moderne in Troyes, France; and the National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan, Armenia.

(Researched and compiled by Michel G. Delhaise, © Jordan-Delhaise Gallery, Ltd.)