Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Chamouillet Collection 
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 14, 1887, lot 3
M. Hecht (acquired at the above sale)
Charles André (and sold, his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 17, 1893, lot 2)
Henri Vever (and sold, his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, February 1-2, 1897, lot 32, as Souvenir d'Italie (Effet du soleil couchant))
M. Ducray
Bernheim Jeune (by 1909 until 1914)
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 10, 1948, lot 57 (sold together with the previous lot)
Galerie Charpentier, Paris
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 6, 1952, lot 48, illustrated
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Thence by descent

Probably, Paris, Salon des Artistes Français, 1848, no. 987 (as Un soir)

Alfred Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris, 1965, vol. II, p. 218, no. 620, illustrated p. 219

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is unlined. It has been lightly cleaned. Although the old varnish was unevenly cleaned and some patches remain in the darker colors, there do not appear to be any retouches. The signature in the lower right reads strongly under ultraviolet light, but seems to be original nonetheless. The cracking to the paint layer is slightly raised, but not disturbingly. The work could be hung in its current state.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Le soir (prairie boisée au bord d'un lac), and the previous lot, Le matin (chevrier sous des grands arbres), have remained in private collections together since their initial exhibition at the Salon of 1848. As a pair, they demonstrate Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's indebtedness to the seventeenth century masters, as well as the profound impact that the Italian landscape, carefully observed earlier in life, would have on the artist. So deeply did Corot admire Claude and Poussin, so fully did he understand their work, that from the outset he viewed nature in their terms....In less than a year [since his arrival in Rome] he had realized his goal of closing the gap between the empirical freshness of outdoor painting and the organizing principles of classical landscape composition.
(Peter Galassi, Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting and the Classical Landscape Tradition, New Haven and London, 1991, p. 168-70)

In composing the present landscape, Corot observes many of the same principles of landscape painting that his predecessor Claude Lorrain had, as seen in Landscape with Hagar and the Angel (fig. 1, 1646, The National Gallery, London). In Lorrain’s painting, just as in both Le soir and Le matin (the previous lot), the composition is closely framed by trees and vast distance is suggested by buildings on a faraway hill beyond water. The viewer’s perspective is at ground level rather than elevated, and the foreground is animated by figures and animals. While the individual elements of the landscape and the light falling upon it are carefully observed, their arrangement suggests artistic license. In describing a larger composition of a similar subject from the same period, Le Chevrier italien, effet du soir (The Italian Goatherd, Evening) (fig. 2, 1847, Musée du Louvre), Bazin suggests that the view is a perfect synthesis of Corot’s experience in Italy and Fontainebleau. He notes that there is also a symbolic resonance to the work, “the melancholy value of a memory; and the little shepherd seems to be the soul of Corot himself bending over his past” (Germain Bazin, Corot, Paris, 1942, p. 51, as quoted in Tinterow, p. 214).



We would like to thank Martin Dieterle and Claire Lebeau for kindly confirming the authenticity of this lot.