A walking trail through the village centre and two forest loops, tracing the living and working sites of the Barbizon School painters. The circuit passes the Auberge Ganne, the studios of Millet and Rousseau, the Éléphant rock formation, and reaches deep into the Fontainebleau forest.
Places along the route
- 01Maison de Rousseau
Former home of Théodore Rousseau, leader of the Barbizon School. Today one of the two sites of the Musée départemental des peintres de Barbizon.
The Maison Théodore Rousseau at 55 Grande Rue. Rousseau settled in Barbizon in 1847 and stayed until his death in 1867, painting the forest obsessively. His house remains one of the few places in the village where a painter's daily scale is still legible.
View on map → - 02Hôtellerie du Bas-Bréau
Historic 4-star hotel and restaurant in a shaded 2-hectare park at the edge of the forest.
The Hôtellerie du Bas-Bréau at 22 Grande Rue: historic inn and the last village stop before the trail enters the forest. Robert Louis Stevenson stayed here in 1875. Beyond the garden, the sandstone rocks give way to the Fontainebleau forest.
View on map → - 03Médaillon Millet & Rousseau
A bronze medallion memorial to Millet and Rousseau at the threshold between the village and the Forest of Fontainebleau.
The Médaillon Rousseau-Millet: a bronze double portrait by the sculptor Henri Chapu, inaugurated on 19 April 1884 and set into the rock at the entrance to the Éléphant loop. Both painters died in Barbizon. This is their shared monument in the landscape they painted.
View on map → - 04L'Éléphant de Barbizon
A sandstone rock formation whose silhouette unmistakably recalls an elephant: one of the most recognisable natural landmarks in the Fontainebleau forest.
L'Éléphant de Barbizon: a sandstone formation whose outline resolves, from the right angle, into the unmistakable shape of an elephant. The Fontainebleau forest is full of such forms: the rocks can take surprising shapes, and it is easy to mistake one thing for another here.
View on map → - 05Le Dormoir de Lantara
A sheltered glade in the Bas-Bréau forest where herds of up to 20,000 animals once rested — named for the wandering 18th-century painter Lantara, and a favourite subject of Díaz, Rousseau, and Corot.
Le Dormoir de Lantara: by tradition the overnight resting place for herds of up to 20,000 animals crossing the Fontainebleau forest. Named after the wandering painter Simon Mathurin Lantara (1729–1778), who haunted these woods before the Barbizon School existed.
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