Cherries: a group of young women in a landscape

Barthelemy Menn's Cherries: A Group of Young Women in a Landscape, painted in the 1840s-1850s, depicts a pastoral scene characteristic of this Swiss painter who studied under Ingres in Paris. Menn, born in Geneva, became one of the most important Swiss painters of the mid-nineteenth century, later serving as a teacher who influenced Ferdinand Hodler and other major Swiss artists. His pastoral subjects combine French academic training with sensitivity to the Swiss landscape.

Menn's oil-on-canvas technique shows the influence of his French academic training in the careful figure drawing and warm, harmonious palette. The landscape setting demonstrates his sensitivity to natural light and his ability to integrate figures with their environment in the plein-air tradition.