Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Charles Alluaud, Limoges and Crozant (his sale: Paris, 24 May 1888, lot 6)
Eduard Ludwig Behrens, senior (1824-1895), Hamburg (acquired in 1889)
Eduard Ludwig Behrens, junior (1853-1925), Hamburg (by inheritance from the above in 1895)
Georg Eduard Behrens, Hamburg (1881-1956; by inheritance from the above in 1925 and until at least October 1939)
H.W. Lange, Berlin (by September 1941)
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (acquired from the above)
Restituted to the heirs of Georg Eduard Behrens in 2008

Limoges, Exposition Sciences et Arts, 1886, no. 90
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, Die Sammlung Eduard L. Behrens, 1910, no. 14 (as Mädchenfigur)
Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten; The Hague, Gand Haags Gemeentemuseum; Paris, Institut Néerlandais,  L'Ecole de Barbizon: Un dialogue franco-néerlandais, 1985-86, no. 18

Emil Heilbut, Die Sammlung Behrens, Munich, 1891 (and later editions), p. 208, illustrated
Alfred Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 36, no. 1343, catalogued; p. 37, illustrated
Bernheim de Villers, Corot, peintre de figures, Paris, 1930, p. 57, no. 207
Germain Bazin, Corot, Paris, 1951, p. 110
Ellen Joosten, The Kröller-Müller Museum, New York, 1965, p. 30, pl. 31, illustrated
Virgilio Gilardoni, Chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art présente: Corot, Paris, 1966, p. 6, no. 16, catalogued, discussed & illustrated; p. 23, no. 16, illustrated in colour
Schilderijen van het Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, 1969 & 1970, p. 89, no. 57, catalogued & illustrated
Ulrich Luckhardt, 'Eduard L. Behrens und Theodor E. Behrens: Sammeln moderner Kunst in zwei Generationen', Private Schätze. Über das Sammeln von Kunst in Hamburg bis 1933, Hamburg, 2001, p. 37, listed

This condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar, Hamish Dewar Ltd. Fine Art Conservation, 14 Masons Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU. Structural Condition The canvas has a hard wax lining. Ideally this wax lining, together with the wax adhesive used in the lining process, should be removed and the original canvas treated on the low pressure conservation table and relined with a soft paste lining. The canvas is stretched onto a wooden frame backed with a wooden board and it would be preferable to remove this board to allow the reverse of the lining canvas to be visible and then stretch the canvas onto a traditional wooden keyed stretcher. Paint Surface Inspection under ultra-violet light shows retouchings beneath the old, discoloured varnish layers but it is difficult to be certain as to the exact extent of old retouching due to the nature of the varnish layers. There are some fine lines of craquelure in the top third of the painting. Summary The painting would undoubtedly respond extremely well to cleaning and revarnishing and I would be confident of a considerable colour change and a great improvement in the overall appearance.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Jeune femme à la fontaine ranks among Corot's great figural paintings. At once imagined and real, rooted in Classical tradition and the Dutch Golden Age yet supremely modern in conception, the painting numbers among Corot's works that put him at the very cusp of modernism and which would make him an inspiration to later generations.

The painting is an outstanding example of the classical spirit and poetry with which Corot imbued his finest figure paintings of the 1860s. The pose and modelling of the figure evoke the iconic female figures of the Renaissance. Corot tempers her monumentality with a pensive intimacy drawn from the Dutch seventeenth-century masters. Yet her enigmatic expression is that of a very real woman, not an idealised 'type', and her elusive gaze lends her a psychological complexity.

Much like Manet's Olympia, painted in 1863 at about the same time as Jeune femme à la fontaine, the viewer is held captive by the powerful tension between the familar and the new, between the painting's timelessness and its immediacy. Corot's figural works reverberate in the paintings of the Impressionists and beyond, the girls' haunting miens finding expression in the figurative and abstract work of Picasso who became interested in Corot in the 1910s, making a free copy of one of his figure portraits.

One of Corot's greatest achievements in his figural works is his ability to reveal eternal truths through the fusion of reality and memory. Corot explored the theme of the girl by the well in a number of canvases after 1855, but the present work, along with La Rêveuse à la fontaine, formerly in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and another work of the same title sold in these rooms in 2003, are arguably the most resolved, and the culmination of his developing thoughts on the subject. Alfred Robaut in his catalogue raisonné presents them together as a triumvirate, illustrating them side by side with the present work flanked by the other two (fig. 1). 

It was his trips to Italy in 1825-28, 1834 and 1843 that inspired Corot's distinctive Italian peasant girls. Corot enthused that: 'In them, I saw the beauty of life. This beauty is in every creature, it is everything which breathes and which is impregnated with light' (quoted in Marlborough Gallery, Corot, London, 1963, p. 9). While the present work was painted after these sojourns, it was certainly painted from Corot's images and his idealised memories of the Italian women he encountered in his travels.

The simple, stage-like backdrops and recurring decorative elements such as urns exhibited in works such as Jeune femme à la fontaine reflect Corot's lifelong passion for the ballet and opera. Even the young woman's traditional peasant dress is more costume-like than based on first-hand observation – Corot would sometimes borrow opera costumes in which to adorn his models, and this combination of yellow skirt, green corset, white chemise and red hair ribbon is used in at least two other compositions (fig. 2). In Corot's studio, these peasant women became his modern-day Venuses and Dianas, or even became symbols of an intangible idea, set against a capriccio backdrop.

During the 1860s and 1870s Corot devoted more time to figural works than ever before. However, for the most part, these paintings seem not to have been intended for public exhibition; he exhibited only four during his lifetime. Instead, he found a ready market for them among discerning friends collectors, who recognized their true sophistication. Corot's achievements as a figure painter were acknowledged by his contemporaries. One of the greatest lights of the Impressionist movement, Edgar Degas, even stated when pressed to agree about Corot's skills in drawing a tree: 'Yes, indeed... and I find his figures yet superior' (quoted in Alfred Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot, Paris, 1905, p. 254).

The first owner of Jeune femme à la fontaine, Charles Alluaud (1861-1949), was scion of the family that had directed the porcelain factory in Limoges since the eighteenth century. Charles became a renowned entomologist, studying insects in France and travelled extensively in Africa and elsewhere between 1887 and 1930. During his childhood, he and his brother Eugène had received painting instruction from Corot ,and it is likely that Alluaud acquired the present work because of his early association with the artist.

Eduard Ludwig Behrens, the next documented owner of Jeune femme à la fontaine (1824-95), was one of the early directors of the private banking firm of Levy Behrens & Söhne in Hamburg. Eduard bequeathed his large and important art collection to his son Eduard Ludwig Behrens junior who left it, in turn, to his son, Georg. The Behrens porcelain collection had gone to Eduard Ludwig junior's brother, Theodor (1857-1921), Georg's uncle.

In 1925, Georg loaned the Behrens paintings collection to the city of Hamburg for a period of ten years. On the expiry of this agreement, Georg attempted to send the collection to the safety of Switzerland, but was informed on 1 April 1935 by the Nazi authorities that the present work and a number of other key works from the Behrens collection had been included on the Verzeichnis der national wertvollen Kunstwerke (list of works considered to be of national significance) and that it therefore could not leave Germany without permission.

In May 1938, the Behrens banking firm was Aryanised and the following November Georg was placed under arrest in Hamburg and then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was interned until the end of December. He emigrated to Belgium in April 1939. In order to obtain his exit visa he had to pawn all his possessions to the State. From Belgium he moved to France where, following the outbreak of the Second World War, he was held in a camp in the south of France before obtaining a visa to Cuba in the autumn of 1940. After the war, Georg Eduard Behrens returned to Hamburg and died in that city in 1956, never having recovered the Corot.

FIG. 1, The present work (centre) flanked by two related works, both entitled La Rêveuse à la fontaine (the one on the right in a private collection, the one on the left formerly in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and now lost), as illustrated in: Alfred Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 37


FIG. 2, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, L'Atelier de Corot, circa 1865-68, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.