Summer Landscape with Haystacks

A pupil of Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot and son of sculptor Marie-Cadiot Naomi, Vignon preferred the new impressionist style of painting that emerged in France in the 1870s. The artist exhibited in the official Impressionist exhibitions in 1880 and 1881 and was friends with fellow painters Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir Armand Guillaumin, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne.

This summer landscape is likely a Île-de-France view, where the artist lived, perhaps in the environs of Auvers sur Oise, Nesles-la-Vallée, or Jouy le Comte. Vignon treated the subject in at least two other canvases--of different sizes and with different vegetation--probably painted in the mid-1880s.