Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

M. Jaquette, Lisieux;

With Paul Détrimont, Paris;

From whom acquired by Boussod, Valadon et Cie., Paris;

From whom acquired by Vicomte Philippe de Saint-Albin, Paris, 5 June 1893;

From whom acquired by Eugène Le Roy, 1 April 1902;

From whom acquired by Georges Bernheim, Paris, 15 December 1911;

Hector Gustave Brame (1866-1936), Paris, acquired circa 1913;

Thence by descent to his son Paul Brame, Paris, until at least 1960;

Paul (1907-1999) and Rachel (1910-2014) Mellon, Upperville, VA, before 1966;

With Eugene V. Thaw, by 1973;

From whom acquired by Arnold (1902-1982) and Fannie (1907-1988) Askin, New York, 1973;

With Coe Kerr Gallery, New York, by 1989;

With Galerie Nichido, Tokyo;

Private collection, Japan, 1992;

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 18 April 2018, lot 37;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, 18 March-1 May 1966, no. 3, reproduced, as Peasant Women Chatting in a Courtyard

London, William Beadleston, Inc., The Askin Collection, 30 March-13 April 1989, also New York, Coe Kerr Gallery, 25 April-17 May 1989, n.p., reproduced.

Yamagata, Sakata City Museum, From Impressionism to the École de Paris, 2002, no. 1

Ibaraki, Kasama Nichido Museum of Art, Maurice Utrillo and the Fascinating Landscape Paintings, 16 September-23 November 2011, n.p

A. Robaut, L'Œuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1905, vol. III, pp. 236-237, cat. no. 1991, reproduced.

Trois paysannes causant dans une cour rustique is a prime example of the provincial and peaceful images that garnered Corot great fame in his lifetime, as a leading propone to the Barbizon school, and at the turn of the century with collectors in France and across the United States. Corot’s quotidian scenes of everyday activity in the French countryside appealed to increasingly modern sensibilities for their quiet contrast to the loud, hurried, and dirty realities of urban living. This mise en scène of modest work and hushed conversation, bathed in dappled light, bridges Realist tendencies advanced by Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet and Impressionist beginnings propelled by Corot’s students Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, whose early recalls these scenes of rural life.

The complete and distinguished provenance for the present lot is well documented and quite rare. At the end of the 19^th century, the painting passed through the hands of the Paris dealers Boussod, Valadon et Cie. and Georges Bernheim. At the turn of the 20^th century, it formed part of the private collection of Hector Brame, another noted Parisian dealer, whose merger with Jean Lorenceau created the firm Brame & Lorenceau, still operating today. The painting remained in the Brame family until the early 1960s when it was acquired by Paul Mellon, the American philanthropist, horse breeder, and founding benefactor of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Trois paysannes causant dans un cour rustique was exhibited at the National Gallery as part of the Mellon collection in 1966. The painting then passed through New York art dealer and collector Eugene Thaw before landing in private collections between the United States and Japan.