Jean Baptiste Camille Corot - Summer Landscape with a Path and Lake - image-1

Lot 1539 Dα

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot - Summer Landscape with a Path and Lake

Auction 1076 - overview Cologne
19.11.2016, 14:00 - 19th Century Art
Estimate: 150.000 € - 180.000 €
Result: 248.000 € (incl. premium)

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

Summer Landscape with a Path and Lake

Oil on canvas, mounted on panel. 47.5 x 62 cm.
Signed lower left: Corot.

The present work is one of Corots later landscapes in which reality appears to merge with vision. Of his own paintings the artist wrote: “In order to find one's way into my landscapes, one has to wait patiently for the fog to disperse; one enters them slowly, but once inside, one finds great joy”. Corot intended the viewer to take time in approaching his works, and this certainly applies to the present image. It depicts a park landscape shrouded in delicate mist with a path lined by birch and poplar trees leading along a quiet stream. In Corot's later works, definite forms dissolve into the fog to create the airy elegance that sets this artist's works apart from other French painters. He achieved this effect through the use of an umber-coloured ground and a smudged grey coat that partially obscures and merges with the motifs. The primarily monochrome surface of the canvas is punctuated by carefully placed bursts of colour. This work can be stylistically related to the works that Corot painted in Mortefontaine near Senlis, and it may also originate from this period.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming supplement to the catalogue raisonné of the works of Corot.

Certificate

Martin Dieterle and Claire Lebeau, Paris, October 2016.

Provenance

1877 in possession of M. Goupil.- 1904 in possession of Mrs Harouel-Garcia. - Collection James H. Clarke, Philadelphia, USA. - Auction Parke-Bernet, New York, 15.10.1976, lot 219. - There bought by Galerie Bühler, Munich. - Private collection, Germany.

Literature

Alfred Robaut: L'Oeuvre de Corot, Vol. 3, Floury, Paris 1905, p.84-85, no. 1496.