The Moored Boatman: Souvenir of an Italian Lake

1861

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Painter, French, 1796 - 1875

We look across a lush landscape of olive-green forests lining a glimmering, silvery-blue lake with hills in the deep distance under a pale blue sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted with some visible and some blended brushstrokes to give it a hazy, soft appearance. A man wearing a red cap and a white shirt sits in a long, low, narrow boat with a pointed bow in the grasses along the shore, near the bottom center of the composition. Gnarled tree trunks, one to each side, frame the view beyond. Towering, leafy trees nearly fill the right half of the painting. To our left, the still surface of the lake leads back to a city painted almost in silhouette with flint blue, which is reflected in the surface of the water. Hills and mountains are painted in bands of lightening blue as they recede into the deep distance to our left. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the pale sky above is veiled with soft white clouds. The painting is signed in orange letters in the lower left corner, “COROT,” and dated in the lower right, “JANVIER 1866.”

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 90

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Given by Corot to his god-daughter, Mme. Renaut, at the time of her first communion;[1] purchased by (Georges Petit, Paris) by 1898;[2] sold to Albert, vicomte de Curel [1827-1928], Paris;[3] his heirs; (his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, 25 November 1918 [originally scheduled for 3 May 1918], no. 1, as Le Lac de Terni); purchased jointly by (Arnold & Tripp, Paris) and (M. Knoedler & Co., New York);[4] purchased April 1919 by William Andrews Clark [1839-1925], New York, as Le Lac de Terni;[5] bequest 1926 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] See M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Sales book 11, p. 253.
[2] See Alfred Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot, Paris, 1905: 224, no. 1943.
[3] The vicomte de Curel has been identified by François Auffret, Président of La Société des Amis de Jongkind in Paris (founded 1970), with confirmation from the collector's descendants. With M. Auffret's kind permission, his research was shared with the Corcoran Gallery of Art by Dr. Diana Kostyrko (see her e-mail from 11 November 2008 in NGA curatorial files).
[4] See M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Stock book 6, no. 14539, p. 181, row 47.
[5] See M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Stock book 6, no. 14539, p. 181, row 47.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1959

  • Loan Exhibition. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art: A Benefit Exhibition in Honor of the Gallery's Centenary, Wildenstein, New York, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as The Lake of Terni.

1960

  • Corot (1797-1875): An Exhibition of His Paintings and Graphic Work, The Art Institute of Chicago, 6 October - 13 November 1960, no. 90.

1966

  • Barbizon First Anniversary Exhibition of Lakeview Center, Peoria, Illinois, 6 April - 16 May 1966, repro.

1969

  • Retrospective of Paintings by J. B. C. Corot, Wildenstein & Co., New York, 29 October - 6 December 1969, no. 50, repro.

1978

  • The William A. Clark Collection: An Exhibition Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Installation of The Clark Collection at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 26 April - 16 July 1978, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1983

  • La Vie Moderne: Nineteenth Century French Art from the Corcoran Gallery, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Columbus Museum of Arts and Sciences, Georgia; Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tampa Museum; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha; Akron Art Museum, 1983-1985, no. 3, repro.

1989

  • The William A. Clark Collection: Treasures of a Copper King, Yellowstone Art Center, Billings; Montana Historical Society, Helena, 1989, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1991

  • Corot to Monet: The Rise of Landscape Painting in France, The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire; IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York; Dallas Museum of Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 27 January 1991 - 5 January 1992, repro.

1996

  • Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts of Canada, Ottawa; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 28 February 1996 - 19 January 1997, fig. 64.

2005

  • Corot: Natura, emozione, ricordo, Madrid Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza; Ferrara Palazzo dei Diamanti, 2005-2006, no. 2, repro.

2014

  • Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2014 (shown only in Tulsa).

Inscriptions

lower left: COROT; lower right, the "n" backwards: Janvier 1861

Wikidata ID

Q41516184

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