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1850/1860

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Artist, French, 1796 - 1875

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Attributed to

A person at the center of this loosely painted horizontal landscape rides a dark horse across a field as a man to the left works the field behind a horse-drawn plow. The field is carpeted with muted and gold-shaded green, and a grove of trees in the right third of the composition are painted in fern, olive, and dark green. A patch of darker green near us and to left of center is dotted with red and yellow to suggest flowers. The men and horses are small in relation to the composition. The people have brown skin and are painted with a few strokes in dark gray and muted green for the man behind the plow to the left and pale yellow and white and a red cap for the person on horseback. A band of houses with tan or light yellow walls and gray or terracotta red roofs line the far side of the field to the left, and an arched bridge crosses what appears to be a shallow, grassy ravine near the center. The horizon comes about a third of the way up this composition and a few smoke-gray clouds line the upper edge of the otherwise milk-white sky. The artist signed the lower left corner, “COROT.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Widener Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 33.8 x 55.3 cm (13 5/16 x 21 3/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1942.9.13

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, Paris, 3 May 1876, 1,200 francs). (Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 29 January 1877, no. 11, as Laboureur et cavalier dans la campagne, 520 francs).[1] (Marchand sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 31 March 1890, no. 13 as La Charrue, 7,000 francs); purchased by Foinard.[2] (Galerie Georges Petit, Paris); sold 1891 to Peter A.B. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[3] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park; gift 1942 to NGA.
[1] 1876 and 1877 sales per Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener of Elkins Park Pennsylvania, W. Roberts, ed. (privately printed: 1915). Lugt lists five Paris sales for 3 May 1876 and six sales for 29 January 1977; of these, only one is available in the U.S., Hôtel Drouot, Tableaux Modernes, which includes works by Corot. Number 11 in this sale has almost the same dimensions as the NGA painting.
[2] Annotated sales catalogue in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener of Elkins Park Pennsylvania, W. Roberts, ed. (privately printed: 1915).

Associated Names

Bibliography

1905

  • Robaut, Alfred, and Etienne Moreau-Nélaton. L'Oeuvre de Corot. Catalogue raisonné et illustré. 5 vols. Paris, 1905: 2:294, no. 946, repro., as Fermier à cheval surveillant le labourage.

1915

  • Roberts, William. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: British and Modern French Schools, Philadelphia, 1915: unpaginated, repro., as Epernon Fermier à Cheval Surveillant le Labourage.

1923

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro., as Épernon Fermier á Cheval Surveillant le Labourage.

1931

  • Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 206, repro., as Epernon Fermier à Cheval Surveillant le Labourage.

1948

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 104, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 30.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 24, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 74, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 432, no. 620, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 94, repro.

2000

  • Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 48-51, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: COROT

Wikidata ID

Q20188004

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