Lot 10
  • 10

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Estimate
80,000 - 100,000 GBP
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
  • Crécy-en-Brie - Route dans la campagne
  • signed COROT lower left
  • oil on canvas
  • 32 by 41cm., 12½ by 16in.

Provenance

M. Decan, by 1875
Boussod, Valadon et Cie, Paris
Saint-Albin, Paris
Helen Sanderson, New York (in 1918)
Charles M. Platt, New York
John Levy Galleries, New York
Richard V. Nuttall, Pittsburg (his sale: Parke Bernet, New York, 21 May 1952, lot 28)
Ralph E. Fair, Jr., New York (purchased at the above sale)
Sale: Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, 2 May 1974, lot 201
Dr. J.J. Gonzalez Gorrondona, Jr., New York
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 28 February 1990, lot 16
Private collection, Japan (purchased at the above sale)
Sale:  Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 October 2000, lot 2
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited

Paris, École des Beaux Arts, Exposition de l'Œuvre de Corot, 1875, no. 195 (as Chemin de fer à Crécy)

Literature

Alfred Robaut, L'Œuvre de Corot: catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1965, vol. III, p. 236, no. 1994, catalogued; p. 237, illustrated with a drawing by Robaut

Condition

The canvas has been relined. The picture is in good overall condition and presents well to the naked eye. Ultra-violet light reveals areas of uneven fluorescence due to old residual varnish. One fine vertical line of retouching is visible in the tree foliage to the left, and two lines of restoration are visible in the sky in the right hand side of the picture. Other small scattered spots of retouching are visible, including some strokes in the far upper left corner, in the extreme left framing edge, and in the far upper right corner. The picture is ready to hang. Presented in a decorative gilt frame with a white inner slip. The colours are less yellow and deeper in reality than in the catalogue illustration.
"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."

Catalogue Note

Painted circa 1870-72.

Roads and paths are recurring motifs in Corot's work, and from his youth the artist appears to have been particularly fond of lanes that ascend and descend. In contrast to the increasing number of souvenirs Corot painted in the 1860s - silvery poetic reminiscences of a particular place distilled into a picture - the present work is very much set in time and place and, if not painted in the open air, at least based on a plein air sketch made on the spot, in this case a country road in Brie. The immediacy of the observed light and tonalities is abundantly evident.

For Corot, form and tonality, the effect, came before detail. Seeing Corot and Courbet work side by side at Saintes in 1862, critic Théodore Duret wrote, 'Corot and especially Courbet aspire to render the appearance of nature without adding anything. They work at getting down with precision the things seen, but, since they see them as true artists...they grasp the characteristic aspects and ignore the details, the secondary traits.' (Duret, quoted in Roger Bonniot, Gustave Courbet en Saintonge 1862-3, 1973, p. 103.)

Indeed it was works such as the present one that prompted young painters, Berthe Morisot among them, to elicit Corot's instruction and approval. Pissaro described himself as a pupil of Corot in the Salon brochures as a measure of respect, and others did the same. Corot was adopted by the proponents of the New Painting; Émile Zola, Théodore Duret, and Edmond Duranty, the key writers on the new school, considered Corot a progenitor of Impressionism. And indeed at one point or another in the course of the 1860s, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley each experimented with some of Corot's techniques.