An eminent French artist, born in Paris; at 19 exhibited in the Salon; slowly won his way to the front as the greatest French landscape painter; in 1848 settled down in Barbizon, in the Forest of Fontainebleau, his favourite sketching ground; his pictures (e. g. "The Alley of Chestnut Trees," "Early Summer Morning") fetch immense prices now (1812-1867).