Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 'Italian Woman', about 1870

Italian Woman

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Room 41

About the work

Overview

A supremely poised young woman is painted in three-quarter view. Her right hand curls around the handle of a mirror, while she appears to be caressing a lock of hair with her left. She wears a white blouse under a black velvet bodice and yellow detachable sleeves over her arms. This study is one of a number that Corot painted during the last years of his life. According to an early biographer, Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, he would take a week out from painting landscapes to paint models in the studio.

Corot had a particular interest in Italian costume, and kept clothes in his studio with which to dress his models. Both the bodice, actually part of a dress, and the sleeves also appear in other paintings. He was not interested in authenticity, but took delight in mixing up the pieces to create a pleasing juxtaposition of colours and textures.

In-depth

A supremely poised young woman is painted in three-quarter view. Her right hand curls around the handle of a mirror, while she appears to be caressing a lock of hair with her left. She wears a white blouse under a black velvet bodice which is trimmed with red ribbon, and over her arms yellow detachable sleeves, decorated with a blue bow from which three blue ribbons fall. This study is one of a number that Corot painted during the last years of his life, many of which are characterised by an air of introspection and melancholy.

According to an early biographer, Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, he would take a week out from painting landscapes to concentrate on capturing on canvas the special qualities of a particular model, the identity of whom is often not known. The origins of these studies lay in his first visit to Italy in 1825–8, when he not only painted the landscape but also made studies of the people, including several of women dressed in traditional costume.

The different pieces of clothing included here also appear in other paintings by Corot. The black bodice actually belongs to a dress which can be seen in its entirety in The Reader (1868, Minneapolis Institute of Art), and the sleeves, sometimes minus their blue ribbons, can be seen in a number of studies of women, of which the earliest is The Woman with a Pansy (1855–8, Denver Museum of Art). These sleeves were part of Italian traditional costume, and were tied over an undergarment allowing it to show, and in some cases billow out over the top. Corot kept assorted articles of dress in his studio with which to clothe his models. He was particularly interested in Italian costume, and in 1857 he asked for items to be sent from Albano, near Rome. In his depictions of such dress he was not interested in authenticity, but took delight in mixing up the different pieces to create a pleasing juxtaposition of colours and textures.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Italian Woman, or Woman with Yellow Sleeve (L'Italienne)
Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Artist dates: 1796 - 1875
Date made: about 1870
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 73 × 59 cm
Acquisition credit: Accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by HM Government from the estate of Lucian Freud and allocated to the National Gallery, 2012
Inventory number: NG6620
Location: Room 41
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 19th-century French Frame

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; 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.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Sarah Herring, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings’, vol. 1, ‘The Barbizon School’, London 2019; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2016

Painters' Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck

The National Gallery (London)

23 June 2016 - 4 September 2016
2018

Corot: The Painter and His Models

Musée Marmottan Monet

8 February 2018 - 22 July 2018
2018

Corot: Women

National Gallery of Art (Washington DC)

9 September 2018 - 31 December 2018

Bibliography

1926

Kunsthaus Dresden, Internationale Kunstaustellung (exh. cat., Kunsthaus, Dresden), Dresden 1926
1936

Wildenstein, G., La Collection Oscar Schmitz: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture française du XIXᵉ siècle (exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Paris), Paris 1936
1937

Anonymous, 'Art Throughout America', Art News, XXXV, New York 1937
1939

Golden Gate International Exposition, Masterworks of Five Centuries (exh. cat. Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco), San Francisco 1939
1939

M. Seton, 'Edward G. Robinson's Collection', The Studio, London, December 1939
1940

R.J. McKinney, The Development of Impressionism, (exh. cat. Los Angeles Museum), Los Angeles 1940
1940

L. Ballard, 'Los Angeles Shows the Development of Impressionism', Art News, New York 10 February 1940
1943

Anonymous, 'Corot in Retrospect: A Note on a Loan Exhibition', The Connoisseur, CXI, London 1943
1955

Musée de l'Orangerie, Toulouse-Lautrec: Chefs d'oeuvre des collections americaines (exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris), Paris 1955
1957

The Knoedler Gallery, The Niarchos Collection of Paintings (exh. cat., Knoedler Gallery, New York; The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), New York 1957
1958

The Arts Council of Great Britain, The Niarchos Collection (exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London), London 1958
2014

National Gallery, The National Gallery: Review of the Year, April 2012 - March 2013, London 2014
2019

Herring, Sarah, National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings, 1, The Barbizon School, London 2019

Frame

Carved from oak, this nineteenth-century French frame in the Louis XV style with a sweeping outline exhibits all the characteristics of a Montparnasse frame – a reproduction style designed to harmonise with the painting’s hues.

The central cartouches on the horizontal sides are smaller in scale than those on the vertical sides and corners. Each pierced cartouche is embellished with a stylised shell motif on a punch-tooled background, flanked by deeply set ‘queue de cochon’ (curled leaf) and ‘rinceaux’ (branches with foliage). Both the back edge and sight edge are decorated with French acanthus leaves. The patina over the gilding has been applied to match the tones of the artwork.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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A Flood

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A river runs from the left edge of this painting to the bottom right corner. A bank rises gently towards the right. A lone figure dressed in a red shawl and bright yellow hat stands motionless under the leaning tree. In the centre a group of houses with steep gabled roofs stands amid a further gr...

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A Wagon in the Plains of Artois

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This view, painted in May 1871, forms part of a group painted by Corot during his stay in north-east France during the spring and summer of 1871. On the horizon, just right of centre, stands a windmill, its sails visible against the sky. Windmills were an extremely common sight in the Pas de Cala...

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Avignon from the West

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This panoramic view of the medieval city of Avignon in the south of France most likely dates from a visit Corot made in July 1836. We are looking at Avignon from the small town of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, on the opposite side of the Rhône.The luminosity of this oil study is similar to outdoor oil...

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Cows in a Marshy Landscape

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Despite the presence of a village in the background, it is not possible to be certain about the location of this pastoral scene. However, the composition is similar to a view of the village of Gisors in Normandy, which Corot painted in October 1873. This picture may be a pared-down view of Gisors...

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Dardagny, Morning

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A woman wearing a long dark dress and yellow straw hat stands next to a cow on a path which draws the viewer into the landscape. Long shadows are cast by the bushes and tree on the left. In the background the lavender blue hills of the Jura descend from left to right. The view is near Dardagny,...

Room 41

Evening on the Lake

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It is the end of the day, and a fishing boat heads into a secluded inlet, guided by a lone figure. To the right is a wooded promontory, the branches of the trees stretching out over the water. The sun’s last rays are caught by one or two of the clouds, but the overall light is pearly, and the blu...

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Landscape at Arleux-du-Nord

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This view belongs to the group of pictures that Corot painted during his stay in north-east France in 1871. The site depicted is probably the Canal de la Sensée between Arleux and Palluel. Corot first painted the view in May 1871, basing his picture on a study by his friend Alfred Robaut, with wh...

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Monsieur Pivot on Horseback

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In this small, intimate portrait, the rider, turning to look at the viewer, seems to have been caught unawares. He is Monsieur Joseph Pivot, who was about 50 at the time and a neighbour of Corot in Ville-d’Avray. He frequently rode his horse in a nearby wood where Corot also went to paint, and on...

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Peasants under the Trees at Dawn

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Under a spreading tree in the left foreground a man saws amidst a pile of logs while a woman reaches up into the tree itself. A stream (the Auxois) winds its way from behind the foreground boulder through the gully on the left-hand side to the hill beyond. The light is coming from the right backg...

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Seated Woman

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Throughout his life Corot painted images of women dressed in particular costume, often folk dress. They cannot be described as portraits, and the sitters are often unknown. In this example, the woman wears a white dress of perhaps muslin or organza decorated with pink satin ribbons. In her left h...

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Souvenir of a Journey to Coubron

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

The marshy pond in the left foreground blends into land rising to a small hill on the right, where two buildings are nestled behind a row of tall trees. In 1867 Corot made the first of many visits to Coubron, which lies to the east of Paris. During a visit in April 1873 he made a sketch in the n...

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Souvenir of Palluel

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

This view is one of a number painted by Corot during his stay in north-east France in the spring and summer of 1871. In May he stayed with his friend and fellow artist Alfred Robaut at Douai. Robaut later wrote that this work, painted in just a few hours, was a copy after one of his own sketches,...

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Summer Morning

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The pond which takes up the foreground probably lies in the grounds of the tall building glimpsed at the extreme right, perhaps a mill or château. Beyond an open gate lies an unseen road or lane bordered by a hedge, and further in the distance stands a higher bank of trees. At the left, the woman...

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The Four Times of Day: Evening

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This is the third in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. It is evening and colours are at their richest. Nearest to us, a mysterious figure is wearing what appears to be a dark brown monk’s hab...

Room 40

The Four Times of Day: Morning

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

This is the first in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. Two tall trees with full foliage on the left of the panel are offset by two smaller trees on the right. Corot’s use of trees on either s...

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The Four Times of Day: Night

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A rare example of a night scene by Corot, this is the last in a series of four panels illustrating the different times of day that he painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. As in Morning, we see a single figure, probably a man, accompanied by a dog. There is a sense of a...

Room 40

The Four Times of Day: Noon

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This is the second in the series The Four Times of Day that Corot painted for his friend, fellow artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. In this panel, the light is brighter than in the previous panel, Morning, and fills the picture. There is an overall lightening of tone and a wider range of colours....

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The Leaning Tree Trunk

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This idyllic view of elegant trees and a peaceful lake is one of a number of related scenes painted by Corot at this period. The lake is one of those at Ville-d'Avray near Paris, the location of Corot’s family home, and the trees are based on a drawing he had made at Civita Castellana during his...

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The Marsh at Arleux

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This sketch was painted at Arleux-du-Nord, to the south of Douai in north-east France. Corot’s friend and fellow-artist Alfred Robaut, who lived in Douai, had persuaded him to leave Paris in April 1871 to escape the Commune following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. Corot spent the spr...

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The Oak in the Valley

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This view was one of several pictures that Corot painted in May 1871, when he was staying with his friend Alfred Robaut in Douai. While many of the pictures are of specific sites, this particular view has not been identified and was probably painted in the studio.The handling, particularly of the...

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The Roman Campagna, with the Claudian Aqueduct

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It is likely that Corot painted this small oil sketch on paper in the spring of 1826, a few months after beginning his first of three trips to Italy. He painted a number of views that included the Aqua Claudia, a Roman aqueduct, which you can see in the distance, around five kilometres south-east...

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The Seine near Rouen

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Corot painted this view of the landscape and river Seine west of Rouen from the top of the Tour du Gros Horloge, a popular viewing platform in the city for the vistas it afforded of the surrounding countryside. The island just visible at the far left is the Ile Rollet, which is now connected to t...

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The Wagon ('Souvenir of Saintry')

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A sandy road leads from the immediate foreground to a cluster of sunlit buildings in the centre background. A further, much hazier group, lies just to the right of the prominent tree. The first group depicts the village of Saintry, south-east of Paris. The square tower with its pointed roof is a...

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The Wood Gatherer

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This landscape is one of a number painted by Corot in his later years, which combine a foreground of trees and figures, a lake or sea at the right, and in the left background sunlit buildings descending a hillside. Corot would interweave elements from different locations, juxtaposing views of suc...

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Staircase in the Villa of Maecenas, Tivoli

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Seascape with Figures on Cliffs

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This small painting of a girl in blue and a woman in a black coat standing on cliffs as they look out to sea was previously titled View over the Mediterranean. However, it has recently been proposed that this is a view of Trouville in Normandy, which was a popular destination for various artists...

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A Peasant Woman

Imitator of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

In this pensive study, a woman is dressed in traditional Italian costume. Her distinctive headdress is a tovaglia, a piece of folded linen or other cloth worn flat on the head and covering the neck. With increased Italian migration to France from the middle of the nineteenth century, the subject...

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You've viewed 6 of 27 works