Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Goupil & Cie
Collection of WIlliam Buchanan, New York (and sold: New York, April 13, 1912, lot 33)
Ralston Gallery
Collection of Emil Winter, Pittsburgh (and sold: Parke Bernet, New York, January 15, 1942, lot 441, illustrated)
Sale: Sotheby's Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, April 8, 1973, lot 160
Sale: Galléria, Paris, March 4, 1975
Max Schweitzer Gallery, New York

Alfred Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot: catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 382-383, no. 2424, illustrated

Painted circa 1872.

Corot travelled to Holland in August and September 1854 in the company of his close friend, the painter and lithographer Constant Dutilleux (1807-65). Dutilleux recorded their trip meticulously in his travel diary, and his entry for September 1st describes them sketching together on the beach at Scheveningen. Three of the sketches Corot made that day are recorded in Robaut (nos. 734, 735, and 736).   

Journeys such as this were crucially important in shaping the art of Corot's maturity. Increasingly during the 1860s and 1870s, he would revisit through his imagination places which had left an impression on him, synthesizing his memories into paintings like the present one, which he titled souvenirs. Most of these souvenirs were of Italy; however the present work and lot 190 were both inspired by Corot's 1854 trip to Holland.