Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Collection de Louvencourt;

Collection Georges Bernheim;

With Vose Gallery, New York;

Collection John Levy, New York;

Sale Samuel Katz, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 28 April 1949, lot 35;

Anonymous sale, New York, 19 November 1953, lot 216;

Collection M. Weil, Geneva.

J. Dieterle and A. Schoeller, Corot, Troisième supplément à "L'Œuvre de Corot" par A. Robaut et Moreau-Nélaton, Paris 1974, no. 37 (repr.).

Corot had a classical artistic training, in particular under his master Achille Etna Michallon (1796–1822), but his various travels led him on a different path. During his first stay in Rome in the 1820s, he discovered a light which from that moment on he sought to convey in his works. He produced a great many sketches from nature, as well as painted sketches, from which he could take individual motifs for use in the larger compositions he created in his studio. On his return to France, he became close to the artists who had gathered in Barbizon and began to work sur le motif, taking his easel out into the countryside to paint completely finished works. He then travelled to Switzerland, England and the Low Countries as well as exploring various regions in France. Wherever he was, Corot painted the landscapes he passed through from nature. He was awarded his first medal at the Salon in 1834 and continued to exhibit there in subsequent years. Enjoying the support of Napoleon III, Corot distanced himself still further from academism and increasingly worked by mixing motifs from different sketches to recreate his memories. These imagined landscapes mark the beginnings of Impressionist thought, making Corot the precursor of the movement that would blossom a few years later.

The present composition is a fine example of one of these dreamlike paintings: it does not seem possible to identify this landscape with a pond. It is likely to be an imaginary view, constructed from various motifs, probably in studio. The group of three figures is a recurrent motif in the artist’s oeuvre, as is the group of trees with thin branches: these can be seen, for example, in Le Pâtre devant l'étang [The cowherd beside the pond] in the Musée d’Orsay (inv. RF 1789), dated to the years 1865–70 like the present painting. Neither the roofs glimpsed above the embankment on the left of the composition nor the figures are precisely described, making it impossible to pinpoint a location. Corot has here taken pleasure in evoking a peaceful stroll in a lush landscape, enhanced by the clouds reflected in the pond. Displaying all Corot’s talents as a painter and as an observer of nature and its light effects, this charming composition is typical of his œuvre.