In this attractive, verdant nook, lighted by a luminous patch of brilliant fabrics, the artist has harmoniously placed a group of women. While some of them, stretched at length beneath the shade, gossip together while they rest, two of their number are standing, and watch the flow of the sacred river, the mysterious Nile, witness of so many things, contemporaneous with so many illustrious civilizations. This picture is a masterpiece of composition and colour.] Beginning with _The Verge of an Oasis during the Sirocco_, one can see how Corot’s dexterous and delightful gray came to life again under Fromentin’s brush. “It was a rare distinction,” writes M. Louis Gonse, “in that period of ardent romanticism, to have realized instinctively the value of gray, its caressing softness, its modest yet insistent appeal. Silver gray, amethystine and turquoise gray, these were the tones of which Fromentin was soon vaunting the delicate and tender charm. I remember an interview which I had with him one morning, in his studio, regarding the painter of that unique masterpiece, a _Souvenir of Marissal_. Fromentin was in fine good humour and buoyant spirits. All that he said to me about Corot, his place in art, his daring innovations, his inimitable feeling for light, his exquisite sense of the exact tone, was well worth remembering. It was a marvellous offhand estimate, the substance of which summed up deep-seated convictions. Beneath that flashing, swift-winged flight of words, I felt the earnestness of opinions born of long reflection.” From 1861 onward, Fromentin deserted the Sahara in favour of Sahel, exchanged the consuming heat of summer for a milder sunshine. “He sought,” recorded Louis Gonse, “to paint in lighter, fresher colours: his instinct counselled him to avoid black as a mortal enemy--that black which certain painters deliberately affect, thinking that in this way they are imitating the old masters. All those soft grays, which are luminous half-tones of white, appeared imperceptibly beneath his brush. After having won distinction as a colourist, he became and remained to the end a master of tonal harmony in the subtlest sense. According to the opinion of Sainte-Beuve, ‘he attained his greatest effects by combining the simplest methods in a marvellous manner.’ And since his ambition was of steady growth, his progress in his craft was uninterrupted.”