Jean‐Baptiste‐Camille Corot 1796–1875
NG 6620 
Italian Woman, or Woman with Yellow Sleeve (L’Italienne)

Sarah Herring, 2019

Extracted from:
Sarah Herring, The Nineteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2019).

c. 1870

Oil on canvas, 73.2 × 59.4 cm¹

Signed lower left in a pale orangey paint, some whitish paint also on the brush: ‘Corot’

Support

This appears to be a commercially stretched canvas, on account of the lack of cusping. It is relatively coarse (12 × 12 threads per cm²) with a rather pronounced texture. The original edges were cut off when it was lined with a second canvas; the outer edges are covered with brown tape. There are various labels and numbers on the back, including several customs stamps on the canvas and stretcher, a Bernheim‐Jeune label with the number ‘14948’ (for which see Provenance) and two serrated labels with the numbers ‘5539’ and ‘4231’, the latter repeated in black pencil on the middle vertical stretcher bar.

Materials and Technique

A single sample was obtained for pigment analysis, taken from the top left‐hand background. When examined in cross‐section this sample revealed the entire layer structure. On top of the canvas are three applications of white to off‐white ground. The first, white layer consists solely of lead white; the second layer is an off‐white or pale grey, composed of lead white with a few particles of bone black; the third, uppermost layer is similar to the second, but with the occasional particle of bone black. The upper two layers are very similar and contain a higher proportion of large, semi‐translucent particles than the lowest. It is possible therefore that the initial ground layer was commercially applied and that Corot, in order to counteract the relative coarseness of the canvas, applied two further layers of ground. The lack of any extenders such as barium sulphate or calcium carbonate in any of the layers may, however, suggest that all three layers were applied by Corot himself, as commercial primings at this date tended to contain such extenders. Nonetheless, commercially prepared canvases came with a variety of grounds, including the more expensive unadulterated lead white ground. Examination of other paintings by Corot in the collection suggests no pattern in Corot’s choice of commercial priming, but financially he was in a position to buy the highest‐quality materials and it is evident that he did so for many of his canvas paintings.

The same sample from the dark brown background includes a very thin wash‐like layer directly above the ground, which contains earth pigments and possibly some bone black. This probably constitutes the ébauche layer. The uppermost layer, of relatively thick black‐brown paint, contains brown (including umber), yellow and red earth pigments, and probably some bone black. Analysis of a second paint sample, taken from a similar area of the dark background, has indicated the use of heat‐bodied linseed oil.

The ébauche is quite extensive, with a warm beige under the flesh and grey paint in various tones under much of the sitter’s clothing: a light grey under the bright yellow of the sleeve and the blue ribbons, and a dark grey under the darker mustard yellow shadowed area. Corot also sketched out forms more graphically; some of the fingers in the sitter’s left hand are indicated with short, sketchy lines visible in infrared reflectography as well as to the naked eye. Further dark lines are present in the crease of the sitter’s elbow, indicating folds in the fabric, and dark lines showing through her blouse were presumably intended to serve the same function. The white paint of the blouse is painted over the flesh colour of her chest.

There is a considerable amount of reworking, visible not only in the X‐radiograph (fig. 1) and the infrared reflectogram (fig. 4), but also to the naked eye. The X‐radiograph reveals that the red ribbons previously extended over the sitter’s shoulder and white sleeve, and that the grey area to the left of her sleeve may perhaps have been strengthened to hide these. By contrast, the red ribbon trim of the bodice is the uppermost layer of paint, probably added late in the painting process. The X‐radiograph also makes it clear that she originally wore a headdress (for which see below). This appears to have been pulled loosely across her throat and then hung behind her proper right shoulder. The position of the bodice and blouse may have been altered. The white of the sleeve originally came down lower: to the left of the blue ribbons Corot has left the original white paint exposed where he should have painted it over with the yellow paint of the over‐sleeve oversleeve to match the right side (fig. 2). The sitter’s profile and neck were also modified, the face reduced by a few [page 155] [page 156] millimetres, and the neck by about a centimetre, resulting in an increased gap between her neck and her forefinger. The front and back of the neck are defined with strokes of brown paint; at the back these appear to lie on top of dark background paint rather than on flesh colour, suggesting further modification of the contours. The original position of the chair is visible both in the infrared reflectogram and to the naked eye: a vertical post and two horizontal struts are present at the upper right, painted out with a murky green paint, and the chair repositioned behind and to the right of the figure.

Robaut’s manuscript notes give a detailed description of the painting, but while they confirm reworking, particularly the former presence of a headdress, they cannot be said to match what must have been the original appearance of the painting. His description is as follows: Flavie, or the harmony of yellows ([18]68–70). A life‐size study. She is viewed to the waist, her right hand resting there at the left, the other hand raised to her left shoulder. The whole is seen from a three‐quarter view, and the light comes from the right. The head is covered in a rich yellow cloth that falls to the back – the corsage is of a simple cut, daffodil yellow above, and black at the waist. The arms same very pale cloth with blue ribbons which fall from the height of the deltoid muscle.² [page 157] [page 158] In Robaut’s accompanying drawing of the painting (reproduced in black and white in his 1905 catalogue; fig. 3) he clearly indicates both yellow drapery covering the back of the sitter’s head and a yellow blouse, the same colour, as he notes, as the sleeves. When looked at under the microscope no yellow paint can be detected under the white blouse, which is painted, as observed above, directly over the flesh paint. Furthermore, red paint can clearly be seen through the cracks in the brown hair paint, indicating that the headdress was originally red in colour, not yellow (and perhaps comparable to that worn by the model in The Reader (fig. 5),³ which features long red ribbons falling down her back).⁴ Robaut began his project of documenting Corot’s works in the 1860s, but in some cases he may have written his notes a number of years after he had seen the painting in question.⁵ It is certain that in some cases he forgot details or made mistakes, and further revisions, and possibly errors and omissions were made when Moreau‐Nélaton prepared [page 159] his notes for publication in 1905. The conclusion that has to be drawn here is that Robaut, seeing the painting (in its former state), had misremembered details or perhaps confused it with other works. For example, the model in The Artist’s Studio (fig. 6) wears a yellow scarf or headdress on the back of her head, accompanied by a diaphanous veil at the front.⁶ It should also be noted that in all the many examples of models wearing detachable yellow sleeves (for which see below) they are shown over white blouses, or in some cases bare arms, but never over a garment of the same yellow. It is also possible that Moreau‐Nélaton himself, realising Robaut’s error, altered the title to that which appeared in the 1905 catalogue: ‘Woman with a Yellow Sleeve’.

Many of the upper paint layers, particularly in the costume, have been thickly applied. The three blue ribbons, painted very boldly with thick broad strokes, have been painted wet‐in‐wet into the grey underlayer. The left ribbon, deep in shadow, is one masterful squiggle of paint that gradually merges with the dark background. The modelling of the face is different in handling from the very broad brushwork of the sitter’s clothes, and can be compared, although larger in scale, to that of Seated Woman (NG 4733), the only other figurative painting by Corot in the National Gallery collection. The face is overlaid with a series of hatchings and diagonal strokes in pinks, yellows and creams, especially around the nose, mouth and chin. As in NG 4733, the mouth appears to be fairly thin‐lipped and its contours are ill‐defined.

Conservation and Condition

The paint and ground are in good condition. There are several scattered fine retouchings, seemingly from at least two campaigns, but these are for the most part restricted to pinpoint losses and drying cracks and are mostly found in the dark background and the darker passages of the sitter’s costume. There are several diagonal drips across the painting, one red and the rest brown, which might suggest that the painting was stacked in Corot’s studio after completion.

Discussion

A young woman sits or stands in three‐quarter view in a studio. In an attitude of supreme poise, she looks into the distance. Her right hand curls around the handle of a mirror, the fingers not delineated in any way, while with her left she appears to point with a single finger in an elegant gesture to her neck, although in fact she is caressing a lock of hair. The gesture could well have been developed from that in Young Woman with a Daisy (fig. 7), where the model holds her left hand up to stroke her hair, her index finger separated from the others which are curled under.⁷ In NG 6620 the presence of hair is more difficult to read: the hand now rests on her shoulder and the index finger has become even more prominent, the other fingers more curled, to convey a more emphatic yet at the same time more ambiguous action. In her dark curly hair she wears a pinkish‐red ribbon, knotted at the side, with loose ends hanging down; this matches the ribbon that both trims her black velvet bodice and ties it at her shoulders, ending with a further cluster. The bodice must belong to the dress seen in its entirety in The Reader (fig. 5), where the hem is trimmed with the same red ribbon.⁸ The yellow detachable sleeves are decorated with a blue bow, from which three blue ribbons fall, and have brown bands at top and cuff.

The interior is painted in scumbled dark paint; a chair is placed behind the sitter at the right, and two lines to her left, ascending to the top edge, could indicate panelling. Directly to her left there is a squared‐off area of dark yellow, which appears to be painted in the same greyish‐yellow of the shadowed area of her sleeve, here painted more thinly over the dark paint of the interior. In contrast to the dark interior the subject is bathed in light, yet her dark eyes are deeply shadowed. This feature is perhaps indebted to Courbet, an artist admired by Corot. The dominant colours are the three primaries: pinkish‐red, blue and yellow.

Corot painted figure studies throughout his life, and many of his landscapes were populated by figures from the Bible or mythology, fable or legend. He also depicted figures independent of the landscape, the vast majority of them women, models posed in the studio, reading books, holding instruments such as mandolins, absorbed in their thoughts, or even asleep. In his last years he produced them in ever‐greater numbers in his studio on the rue de Paradis‐Poissonnière, Paris. According to Moreau‐Nélaton, an early biographer, he would take a week out from painting landscapes to concentrate on capturing on canvas the special [page 160] qualities of a particular model. His late works, to which Italian Woman belongs, are characterised by an air of introspection and melancholy. In a recent study Pomarède links these ‘fantasy figures’ both with seventeenth‐century Dutch portraits, particularly works such as Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (about 1665; The Hague, Mauritshuis), whose dominant blue and yellow coloration was perhaps of special importance for NG 6620,⁹ and Frans Hals’s Gypsy Girl (1628–30; Paris, Louvre) and Fragonard’s Portraits de Fantasie, painted during the years 1767–72.¹⁰ These can be described as neither portraits nor specific figures from history, mythology or the Bible. Their subjects wear distinctive dress, often traditional costume (predominantly regional dress from Italy, but also Greek or oriental) or evening dress, or even a combination of the two. Many of these late figure studies, including NG 6620, are characterised by a bold, broad style that is very different from the shimmering, silvery surfaces of Corot’s late studio landscapes.

The origins of these works lay in Corot’s first trip to Italy in 1825–8. As with other artists, in addition to painting the architecture and countryside, he also made sketches of people. As with his plein‐air studies (to which he continually referred throughout his life), the resulting store of poses, types and costumes were reused in his later studio works. During this first visit to Italy Corot painted women at work, or at least holding their work attributes, as in Young Woman from Papigno with Her Distaff (1825; collection of Jon and Barbara Landau),¹¹ and made studies of women dressed in traditional costume. Seated Italian Woman (fig. 9) wears a blue dress, white blouse and green tied‐on sleeves, her costume set off by the bright red cloth draping the chair on which she sits.¹² The sense of melancholy that was to reappear in Corot’s later studies is already evident in her thoughtful pose, her head resting on one hand. The same is true of Seated Woman holding a Mandolin (1826–8),¹³ in which the woman turns her head towards the viewer, but looking into the distance, her left hand trailing a mandolin. This pose was later repeated in The Artist’s Studio (about 1870–2; collection of Spencer and Marlene Hays).¹⁴

Corot’s interest in the people of Italy echoed the studies made by his teacher Achille‐Etna Michallon (1796–1822) during his own stay in Italy from 1818 to 1820; in such works as Woman from the Roman Countryside (1820; Paris, Louvre) Michallon paid detailed attention to the costume. But in fact the rural peasants in the regions around Rome, and in particular their picturesque costumes, had fascinated French artists for a number of years. Depictions of Italian peasants had first appeared at the Salon in 1810, with the tradition carried on by Léopold Robert (1794–1835), Victor Schnetz (1787–1870), Michallon, Ernest Hébert (1817–1908) and William Bouguereau (1825–1905).¹⁵ Many, such as Robert, were concerned both to depict traditional costume in all its detail and to convey the women’s inherent nobility, portraying them with the grandeur of noblewomen. Whilst during the first half of the century artists worked in Italy itself, from the 1850s onwards Italian migration to France, and increasingly to Paris, resulted in a supply of models for artists in the capital; many, such as women from Abruzzi, brought their traditional dress with them.¹⁶ The appeal of these models lay in their Italian peasant origins; they brought with them ways which gradually became diluted by city life the longer they lived in Paris, to the extent that archaeologist and politician Léon de Laborde (1807–1869) advised that Italian models should not be hired for more than three years ‘because at the end of this time Parisian influence would obscure their primitive habits’.¹⁷

While Corot used both Italian and French models in the last decades of his career, he retained a particular interest in traditional Italian dress, to the extent that he requested that a costume be sent from Albano by Edouard Brandon in early 1857, which he acknowledged in a letter of 31 March 1857: ‘To be complete, the costume from Albano needs only a yellow or pink silk dress, the kind I saw in Spilla, and also a crown of silk ribbon’.¹⁸ The costume included the tied‐on sleeves that were typical of the traditional dress of central Italy (the method of attaching sleeves to a bodice with ties [page [161]] [page 162] and allowing the undergarment to show, and in some cases billow out over the top, was a long‐established tradition), and they featured in many of Corot’s earlier works as well as in a number of his later paintings.¹⁹ The yellow sleeves with blue ribbons first appear in The Woman with a Pansy (fig. 11).²⁰ Echoing the earlier Seated Italian Woman (fig. 9), she sits in a melancholy position, one hand in her lap holding the flower, her left elbow on her knee; resting her chin on her hand, she looks pensively downwards. The yellow sleeves also appear in Woman with a Pearl of about 1858–68 (Paris, Louvre),²¹ and, minus the blue ribbons, worn by the maid in La Toilette of 1859 (private collection, Paris).²² The model in Sibylle (fig. 12) also wears them, but with what appears to be a cuff at the top, and with no brown bands or blue ribbons.²³ In The Artist’s Studio (fig. 6) the sleeves are worn over a bare arm: the model wears a short‐sleeved white blouse and the same black velvet bodice and skirt. Two blue ribbons hang down loose from the top of the sleeve, with no bow.

The yellow sleeves do not appear to have been the only detachable sleeves in Corot’s possession, unless he changed their colour according to his composition.²⁴ Two of his sitters wear blue removable sleeves with dark bands at the top and wrist (no ribbons): in A Reader of 1869/70 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art) they are worn over a short‐sleeved blouse, which leaves a gap of exposed arm, and in Young Woman with a Daisy (fig. 7) they are worn over a white blouse and the same black velvet bodice as in NG 6620.²⁵ Putting the detachable sleeves over the bare arms of the model was quite contrary to their original function but Corot often used just particular features of a costume in this way, without depicting it in its entirety, instead mixing elements of dress to form a harmonious whole. This is where he parted company from the detailed and authentic depictions of such artists as Robert and Michallon. Just as his portrayal of costumes tended to be generalised rather than specific, the same is as true of his studies made in Italy in the 1820s and the later figure paintings: his overriding concern appears to be the juxtapositions of colour and fabric in the search for overall effect.²⁶

NG 6620 has been described as a finished version of Sibylle (fig. 12), in which the model holds a rose up to her left shoulder, although the relationship is less likely if the gesture here is taken to be caressing the hair. The source for Sibylle has been identified as Raphael’s Portrait of Bindo Altoviti of about 1515 (Washington, National Gallery of Art), in which the sitter rests his hand on his shoulder, a painting that would have been known to Corot through engravings.²⁷ The model for Sibylle has been identified as Agostina Segatori (1841–1910), known as ‘l’Italienne de Montparnasse’, who was also the subject of a three‐quarter‐length portrait by Corot [page 163] (fig. 13). In 1930 Meier‐Graefe suggested that the same model also posed for NG 6620.²⁸ The identification of the model in the three‐quarter‐length has recently been disputed, with a number of alternative paintings suggested as bearing Agostina’s features, among them Lady in Blue (1874; Paris, Louvre), Italian Girl (about 1872; Washington, National Gallery of Art) and Young Woman in a Pink Skirt (about 1865; Paris, Louvre).²⁹ In Robaut’s manuscript notes (quoted under Materials and Technique above) Robaut calls the model ‘Flavie’ (‘Flavie, or the harmony of yellows’). Flavie, the French form of Flavia, derives from the Latin flavus, meaning yellow, blond, or golden; as it patently does not refer to her hair, Robaut is probably using the name to refer to her yellow costume (although in reality it was just her sleeves that were yellow) rather than to a specific person. A search of his index of people connected with Corot, which includes servants and models, listed by Christian name, does not reveal any person of that name, nor does Santulli’s list of Italian models in Paris at that time.³⁰ In Robaut’s catalogue he uses the title ‘Woman with a Yellow Sleeve’, prompted perhaps by the intensity of its colour.³¹

The model for NG 6620, with her strongly defined features, is undoubtedly the same as the woman in the Lyons painting The Artist’s Studio (fig. 6), who, interestingly, has also been identified as Agostina.³² Also seen in three‐quarter view, the hint of a receding chin, long, elegant nose, dark, almond‐shaped eyes and dramatic eyebrows are the same, although her wistful look and inclined head have none of the former’s elegant assurance. She also bears some resemblance to the subject of Seated Woman, Full‐Face, holding a Mandolin (fig. 10),³³ who, although seen from the front, shares many similar features: long nose, small, pointed chin and deep‐set dark eyes.³⁴ The model for this last painting has also been identified as the same woman who posed for Sibylle,³⁵ although in the latter she appears to be softer and rounder in the face, more generously featured, with fuller lips. Furthermore, with the [page 164] identity of Agostina in Corot’s paintings under question, it is not instructive to try and identify her with this model, but rather suffice it to say that she is almost certainly an Italian model who posed for Corot on more than one occasion.

Provenance

With Jérôme Ottoz (1819–1885), Paris, in 1880; with Galerie Bernheim‐Jeune, Paris; acquired by the textile merchant Oskar Schmitz (1861–1933), Dresden, in 1906;³⁶ possessing Swiss citizenship, Schmitz relocated to Zurich in 1931; acquired along with 61 other French paintings from Schmitz’s heirs after 1933 by Wildenstein & Co., New York; acquired from Wildenstein by Hollywood actor Edward G. Robinson (1893–1973) and his wife Gladys Lloyd (1895–1973), Beverly Hills, by January 1937; with M. Knoedler & Co., New York, from whom acquired by Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos (1909–1996), 25 February 1957; Niarchos sale, Christie’s New York, 9 May 2001, lot 7, bought by Lucian Freud (1922–2011); accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by HM Government from the estate of Lucian Freud and allocated to the National Gallery in 2012.

Former Owners: Ottoz

Ottoz was part of a family of canvas and colour suppliers headed by Ange Ottoz père (born 1788), who founded a shop at 2 rue de la Michodière, Paris, in 1825. Jérôme (1819–1885), opened his own shop in 1862 at 22 rue La Bruyère, but was no longer trading as a colour supplier by 1870.³⁷

Exhibitions

Dresden 1914 (11); Dresden 1926 (81); Zurich 1932 (2); Zurich 1934 (109); Paris 1936 (14); Los Angeles 1937 (124); San Francisco 1939 (139); Los Angeles 1940 (9); Los Angeles 1941 (not numbered); New York 1942 (50); Los Angeles 1949 (10); Philadelphia 1950–1 (54); New York 1951 (34); New York and Washington 1953 (7); Paris 1955 (10); Los Angeles and San Francisco 1956–7 (9); New York, Ottawa and Boston 1957–8 (10); London 1958 (10); Athens 1958 (9); Zurich 1959 (7); Chicago 1960 (120); Paris 1962 (75); London 2016 (2); Paris 2018 (6); Washington 2018 (35).

Literature

Robaut 1905, no. 1583; Fechter 1909–10, pp. 16–19; Waldmann 1913–14, p. 391; Scheffler 1920–1, p. 188; Dormoy 1926, p. 341; Waldmann 1927, p. 32; Meier‐Graefe 1930, p. 102; Waldmann 1930, p. 314; Bernheim de Villers 1930, no. 283; Lane 1942, p. 10; Millier 1944, p. 228; Millier 1949, p. 8; Bazin 1951, p. 135, no. 134; Pomarède, Pantazzi and Tinterow 1996, p. 332.

Notes