“I have bought at Auverse thirty perches of land, all covered with beans, on which I shall plant some legs of mutton when you come to see me. They are building me a studio there, some eight by six meters, with several rooms around it, which will serve me, I hope, next Spring [of 1861]. Father Corot has found Auvers very fine, and has engaged me to fix myself there for a part of the year, wishing to make rustic landscapes with figures. I shall be truly well of there, in the midst of a good farming country, where the ploughs do not yet go by steam.”