The Island and Bridge of San Bartolomeo, Rome

1825/1828

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Painter, French, 1796 - 1875

This horizontal landscape painting shows a cluster of tan and rust-brown buildings set on a tiny island at the center of a wide brownish-gray river. We look across the surface of the smooth, glassy river, which spans the width of the composition. Most of the buildings on the island are about the same height, perhaps three or four stories high, except for a bell tower that rises a story above the rest, to our right of center. Sage-green dabs along the ground on the island suggest vegetation. Two arched stone bridges span the river on either side of the island to connect to the city beyond. The color palette is made up entirely of shades of tan, cream white, and brown, except for the blue sky with a band of white puffy clouds above.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 92

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on paper on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 27 x 43.2 cm (10 5/8 x 17 in.)
    framed: 50.8 x 66.4 x 7.6 cm (20 x 26 1/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    2001.23.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Private collection, France; (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16 November 1917, no. 19, as attributed to Corot, bought in). Henri Vever [1854-1942], Paris.[1] Private collection, Boston. (Wildenstein & Co., New York); sold 1986 to Dr. Gert-Rudolf Flick [b. 1943], London. Private collection, Japan, by 1996;[2] (Wildenstein & Co., New York); purchased 2 February 2001 by NGA.
[1] This painting was not included in the Vever sale in Paris of 1-2 February 1897, which included 14 other paintings by Corot. It is unclear if Vever bought it at the 1917 auction, as his Acquisitions Book (in the Henri Vever papers, Freer-Sackler Gallery Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington) ends in July 1917.
[2] According to the exhibition catalogues, the painting was lent in 1989 to The Lefevre Gallery in London by a private collection in the United Kingdom, in 1991 to a touring exhibition in Manchester and Norwich by a private collection in Switzerland, and in 1996 to a touring exhibition in Washington, Brooklyn, and St. Louis by a private collection in Japan.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1982

  • Consulat, Empire, Restauration: Art in Early XIX Century France, Wildenstein & Co., New York, 1982, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1989

  • Corot, The Lefevre Gallery, London, 1989, no. 9, repro.

1991

  • Corot, City Art Gallery, Manchester; Castle Museum, Norwich, 1991, no. 12, repro.

1996

  • In the Light of Italy: Corot and Early Open-Air Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, 1996-1997, no. 91, repro.

2001

  • Paysages d'Italie: Les peintres du plein air (1780-1830), Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Centro Internazionale d'Arte e di Cultura di Palazzo Te, Mantua, 2001, no. 116, repro., as L'ile de San Bartolomeo (shown only in Mantua).

2005

  • Corot. Naturaleza, Emoción, Recuerdo [Corot. Nature, Emotion, Souvenir], Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, 2005-2006, no. 10, repro. (shown only in Madrid; fig. 55 in Ferrara catalogue).

2012

  • Camille Corot: Natur und Traum [Camille Corot: Nature and Dream], Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 2012-2013, no. 18, repro.

2020

  • True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris; The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2020 - 2022, no. 93, repro.

Bibliography

1975

  • Hommage à Corot. Exh. cat. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 1975: 26.

1982

  • Debray-Ritzen, P. Corot. Paris, 1982: 42, repros. 21 and 49.

1985

  • Leymarie, J. Corot. Geneva, 1985: 23, repro. 22.

1991

  • Galassi, Peter. Corot in Italy: Open-Air Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition. New Haven and London, 1991: 114, 157-158, repro. 159, 172, 229 note 36, pl. 188.

  • McConkey, K. "Corot in Manchester and Norwich: The Art of Landscape." Apollo CXXXII, no. 353 (July 1991): 51, pl. I.

1992

  • Dieterle, Pierre, and André Pacitti. Corot: quatrième supplément à "L'Oeuvre de Corot" par A. Robaut et Moreau-Nélaton, Editions Floury, Paris - 1905. Paris, 1992: no. 3, 12, repro. 13.

1998

  • Conisbee, Philip. "La Peinture de plain air avant Corot." In Corot, un artiste et son temps: Actes des colloques organisées au musée du Louvre...1er et 2 mars 1996 à Paris et...9 mars 1996 à Rome. Ed. by C. Stefani et al. Paris, 1998: 359, 364 note 18.

  • de Seta, C. "Prima di Corot. Pittori e scrittoti tra Rome e Napoli." In Corot, un artiste et son temps: Actes des colloques organisées au musée du Louvre...1er et 2 mars 1996 à Paris et...9 mars 1996 à Rome. Ed. by C. Stefani et al. Paris, 1998: 390.

  • Galassi, Peter. "Before Corot." In Corot, un artiste et son temps: Actes des colloques organisées au musée du Louvre...1er et 2 mars 1996 à Paris et...9 mars 1996 à Rome. Ed. by C. Stefani et al. Paris, 1998: 408, fig. 18.

1999

  • Pomarède, V., and G. de Wallens. "Corot, Camille." In Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Munich and Leipzig, 1999: 21:279.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 357, no. 291, color repro.

2006

  • Conisbee, Philip, and Franklin Kelly. "Small is Beautiful." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 34 (Spring 2006): 2-17, fig. 1.

2015

  • "Art for the Nation: The Story of the Patrons' Permanent Fund." National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 53 (Fall 2015): 18, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: COROT

Wikidata ID

Q20185097

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