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JEAN-BAPTISTE-CAMILLE COROT PARIS 1796 - 1875 VILLE D'AVRAY SOUVENIR DE LA SPEZZIA (EFFET DU MATIN)

signed lower left: COROT

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

M. Batta (Vente Batta, Versailles, 1st December 1902, lot 2);
Arnold et Tripp;
Sir Patrick Ford;
Aitken Dott & Son, Edinburgh (until 1907)
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Alfred Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot, Catalogue raisonné et illustre, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 382, no. 2426, illustrated
CATALOGUE NOTE

Painted in 1874.

There can be no doubt that Corot's Italian years (1825-28) were crucially important in shaping the art of his maturity. The bright Mediterranean light he encountered in Italy provided a stark contrast to the softer, more misty light of France, which consituted the other main theme in his work. Eventually, a synthesis of the two would be evolved in works such as the present one which he titled Souvenirs.

Corot's Souvenirs are meditations on nature rather than accurate representations of particular places. Lyrical in feel, they are the art of reflection and reminiscence, loosely analogous to French Romantic poetry such as that of Lamartine and de Musset, who had entitled a number of their poems Souvenirs. Commenting on Corot's titles, L'Artiste explained: 'Corot is a poet who addresses himself to other poets. Whoever does not possess poetic feeling understands nothing of the painting of Corot!' (Pierre Miquel, Le Paysage Français au XIXe siècle 1824-1874, Maurs-La-Jolie, 1975, vol. II, p. 37).

Typically, Corot would imbue his Souvenirs with what he called an effet. In strict nineteenth-century academic terminology, this implied the relationship between light and dark values, the balancing of which produced the harmony of the picture. However, applied to landscape painting in the mid nineteenth century, the term had come to mean a transitory 'effect' found in nature, such as the particular light or mist produced in the morning or evening.

The present work perfectly honours the classical tradition of balancing what Corot termed the valeurs, the open sky juxtaposed with the dark foliage in the foreground. But at the same time, and as suggested by the title, Corot sought to capture the particular atmospheric conditions of a summer's morning. Instead of becoming a means to an end, the effet was thus the end in itself. It was this that so impressed the new generation of artists, and which made Corot a true forerunner of the Impressionists.

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Martin Dieterle.