River in a Wooded Landscape

River in a Wooded Landscape, dated 1880 in the catalogue — an unusual posthumous date given that Rousseau died in 1867 — may reflect a cataloguing or attribution question, or may indicate a date of reworking or studio completion rather than original execution. Rousseau's studio held unfinished and reworked canvases at his death, and subsequent dates on some works may reflect later intervention. Now in the Judges' Lodgings collection, the canvas depicts one of Rousseau's recurring subjects: a river moving through forest, the interaction of water light and canopy shadow that he explored with particular sensitivity. Forest rivers appealed to Rousseau for the complexity of their visual effects — light broken by water surface, reflected canopy, the movement of water against the stillness of trees. The Judges' Lodgings is a historic house museum in Lancaster, England, holding a collection assembled over time.

The canvas handles the interaction of water light and forest shadow with Rousseau's characteristic attention to atmospheric effect. The river surface is rendered in horizontal strokes that capture the movement of water, while the surrounding canopy is described in vertical and diagonal marks that suggest swaying foliage.