Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Admiral Constant Jean Benjamin Jaurès, Paris (and sold, his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 12-15, 1889, lot 3)
Henry Graves, New York (by 1909)
Boussod, Valadon et Cie., Paris
Mrs. George L. Eaton, Pelham Manor, New York
Henry B. McCormick, Harrisburg
Knoedler & Co., New York (by May 1933)
H. B. McCormick (sold: American Art Association, New York, December 14, 1933, lot 71)
C. G. Howard (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, February 23, 1955, lot 38
R. Willard (acquired at the above sale)
Mr. Grant Suiter, Brooklyn, New York.
Sale: Sotheby's Parke-Bernet, New York, October 23, 1974, lot 202, illustrated
James Levy, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, November 1, 1995, lot 32, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Alfred Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot: catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 218, no. 1910, illustrated p. 219

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has been restored. The landscape, trees and foreground are all very well preserved, with only a few isolated spots of retouching. The lower sky is similarly healthy, but the clouds at the top of the picture on either side of the trees have received tiny dots of retouching to address some weakness. Many of Corot’s pictures tend to be very ambiguous in the upper sky, and while this area is clearly thin and shows signs of abrasion, the restoration is successful.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

With a few strokes of rose at the horizon, Corot evokes the blush of the setting sun and lends this landscape a poetic sense of contemplation. Executed in 1868, Le torrent pierreux is a loosely painted landscape which is emblematic of the artist’s mature style. Here, Corot conjures a stream of moving water in the lower right which subtly reflects the mass of clouds above. Sunlight streams in from the left of the composition, creating a golden halo around the shadowed stand of trees, spilling across the rocks in the gully and highlighting the single figure who anchors the whole composition. In the words of Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, “it is one of those evening paintings, golden and melancholy, that were a specialty of his and that he rendered with such deep feeling” (Moreau-Nélaton, Corot: Biographie critique, Paris, 1913, p. 72).