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.”
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, The Moored Boatman: Souvenir of an Italian Lake, 1861, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection, 1926), 2015.19.25

Upcoming Exhibition

Souvenirs of the Gilded Age:

French Landscapes from the Corcoran Collection

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building

    West Building Main Floor, Gallery M72

  • Ticketing Information

    Admission is always free and passes are not required

Once coveted by America’s wealthy, these landscape paintings were eclipsed by the rising popularity of impressionism.

In the early 1900s, a craze overtook American collectors. Gilded Age elites rushed to acquire paintings of unspoiled French landscapes for their Fifth Avenue mansions. These works were from the Barbizon school, a precursor to impressionism, and they showcase pristine forests and everyday moments of country life. Yet while Barbizon school artists once received high esteem—and high prices—many are unfamiliar to today’s museumgoers. In this exhibition, you’ll see a snapshot of two moments in time: rural life in 19th-century France and wealthy tastes in early 20th-century America.

 

Organization  

Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

Curated by Mary Morton, curator and head of French paintings 

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