Nattestemning med ildebrande i St-Vast-là-haut nær Valenciennes.

This early painting by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, better remembered as one of the greatest French sculptors of the nineteenth century, depicts a night scene with fires burning near Saint-Vast-là-haut near Valenciennes. Painted in 1851 when Carpeaux was twenty-three and still a student, the work demonstrates his interest in dramatic atmospheric effects — the interplay of darkness and fire — encouraged by his study of Romantic painting. The Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen holds the work, its Danish title reflecting passage through the international art market. Carpeaux's paintings reveal a sensibility shaped by Romantic pictorial values that also informed his sculptural work, although in different ways from his formal academic training, and reveal a consistent preoccupation with dramatic light effects.

Oil on canvas with dramatic tonal contrasts for a nocturnal scene lit by fire. Warm orange-red firelight against deep blue-black night sky creates the primary pictorial tension, with landscape features visible only where firelight catches them.