Catalogue entry

• Landscape: 
  • forest path »
  • forest »
  • fern »
• Sites, France: 
  • Fontainebleau »

"[…] aujourdhui je n’ai pas put travailler à cause du brouillard tres/ épais, je n’ai jamais vu la fôret comme ça, j’avais peur, si comme/ le brouillard cherchais a vous enveloppé, J’avais des/ frisson de peur, vous pensez plus que je m’eloignais dedans,/ et ce silence immense qui plane autour de vous/ car comme souvenir j’ai fait le même chemin que nous/ avons fait pour la Mare aux Fée[s], et j’ai trouvez un endroit/ le carfour du Mystere que je regret[e] de n’avoir/ étez plutôt ici car je tombe juste au moment/ où la fougère ce meurt hélas que part cette/ humidité elle case et elle perd sont style/ c’est bien pour moi une chose comme ça" [sic] (... today I could not work because of the very dense fog. I have never seen the forest like this, I was afraid, as if the fog tried to envelop you. I was shivering with fear, as you can imagine, the deeper I got into it, and this deep silence which surrounds you. For, as a remembrance, I took the same path that we did when going to the Mare aux Fée [Fairy Pond]. And I found a place,  the Carrefour du Mystere [Crossroad of Mystery], and I regret not to have been here earlier because I arrive right at the moment when the fern is dying down. Helas, with this humidity, it breaks and loses its look. Something like this is good for me.) (fig. 1)

The inventories tell us that this pastel, given to Marcia Pitcairn, was left behind in France because of its very bad condition. Henri Tambuté, the first husband of Lotty Urban-Leteneur, took care of its restoration. We think that the signature and the date are from his hand.
Nicolaas Urban in a letter speaks of the pastel which was in Anton Zelling's possession before belonging to Berendina. He sees, while strolling through the forest: "the blue atmosphere which is extremely difficult to render in the pastel of the crossroad – which Anton had some time and which, with the pond with pigeons¹ – which [he (Nico) has] now, these are the best representations of this atmosphere."²

1. Hitherto unidentified work.
2."[...] die blauwe atmosfeer die zo intens moeilijk is weer te geven en die op de pastel van de care-four - die Anton indertijd heeft gehad en die met de mare aux pigeon - die ik nu bezit - de beste vertegenwoordigers zijn van deze atmosfeer." (Nicolaas Urban, ALS to Theodore Pitcairn, Bleau [Fontainebleau], 17 January [19]49, private archives, Paris).