This landscape was painted during the arists'stay in the Vallée du Grand Morin. He later wrote of this period, 'I was looking in the Ile-de-France for a region which had preserved its purity and poetry intact, without being disfigured by rows of summer-houses, imitation Renaissance châteaux, pseudo-Basque chalets, all those monstrosities which too frequently invade the countryside fifty kilometers around Paris. It was in the hamlet of Serbonne, in a humble inn, that I installed myself in November 192 to collect my thoughts and work in solitude and calm on winter landscapes which I have always preferred in their gravity to the brilliance of the summer sun'.
Inscribed 'A.D. de Segonzac' b.r.
'My first visit in 1923-1924 to the Vallée du Grand Morin was a revelation to me. I was looking in the Ile-de-France for a region which had preserved its purity and poetry intact, without being disfigured by rows of summer-houses, imitation Renaissance châteaux, pseudo Basque chalets, all those monstrosities which too frequently invade the countryside fifty kilometres around Paris.
Though this account is no doubt correct in other respects, he was evidently mistaken about the year of his visit, which according to Paul Jamot's monograph of 1929 took place in the winter of 1922-3, not 1923-4. This earlier dating is borne out by the fact that the Tate's picture was exhibited in London as early as October 1923.
The painting has also been known as 'La Ferme dans les Terres' and 'Route sur la Ferme'.