Like many Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century, Corot favoured low horizons and the perspective of a low vantage point in his landscapes. He frequently depicted marshlands and stands of willows and other trees in broad vistas. Corot’s much loved family home in Ville d’Avray near Paris boasted a pond and silver birches, planted by his father, which inspired numerous compositions that he subtly modified through artistic licence. For instance, the buildings on the far side of the pond seem overtly distant and the topography rendered lower to recall the sea-level landscapes of Holland from which Corot had recently returned.