Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
(1796- 1875)

 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously referenced the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipated the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste-Camille_Corot

In this painting, the fabled musician Orpheus--who beguiled the Greek gods to allow him to retrieve his beloved wife, who had been fatally bitten by a snake--leads her tenderly from the underworld. In ancient times, it was believed that the deceased continued to exist as spirits, seen here gathered in small groups beneath the delicate trees. Corot, a great music lover, has imbued this work with a sense of melancholy lyricism that hints at the tragic end of the story: Orpheus loses Eurydice forever when he turns to look at her before reaching the world of the living.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus