NARCISSE-VIRGILE DÍAZ DE LA PEÑA (Bordeaux, 1808- Menton, 1876). "Romantic landscape". Oil on canvas. Signed in the lower left corner. Size: 38 x 27 cm; 49 x 38 cm (frame). Narcisse-Virgile Díaz de la Peña is a French artist of Spanish origin with an extensive pictorial variety. At the age of 15 he entered the studios of Sèvres, where he began to decorate porcelain, thus beginning to paint very colourful figures, with a certain orientalist air, typical of the period in which he lived. His period of proliferation of landscapes began around 1831, when he met Théodore Rousseau, whom he saw painting forests and decided to begin with this new pictorial theme. Shortly afterwards, Rousseau himself taught him to master the technique. Thus, his most important works are forest and storm scenes. He was decorated at the Paris Salon in 1851, but it was not until the 1970s that his landscape painting became fashionable and received good reviews from scholars and collectors.