Figure 29 "bad sketches" but declared that both he and Renoir wanted to make a sig- Frangois Compte-Calix 50 (French, 1813-1880). A nificant picture of the subject. The figures in Renoir's La Grenouillere paint- Corner of a Garden, circa ings are very similar in type to those in La Promenade. 1868. Oil on canvas, size and present whereabouts Certainly there is nothing in La Promenade that allows its site to be unknown. Reproduced from a photograph pub- pinpointed; there is no sign, even, that the scene is near the river. All that is lished by Goupil and Co., clear is that the rough, uncultivated terrain—the uneven, irregular path and the circa 1869. London, Witt Library, Courtauld Institute dense foliage—is not that of the enclosed, protected space of a park or garden. of Art. Indeed, the contrast between gardens and open countryside was fundamental in the contemporary imagery of courtship. This can be clearly seen from the con- trast between La Promenade and The Engaged Couple [FIGURE 14], with its gar- den setting, and between the demureness of Francois Gompte-Calix's A Corner of a Garden [FIGURE 29], of the late i86os, and the suggestiveness of his A Little Path That Leads Far [FIGURE 30], shown at the 1875 Salon. 44