Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 'Seated Woman', 1855-65
About the work
Overview
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 hand she holds a rose. A string of what appear to be pearls is entwined in her mass of dark hair. She is framed by an oval of dark paint, the inner rim outlined in dull yellow, perhaps imitating the gold of a frame. Her face is richly modelled in dark shades of brown, her deep-set eyes almost lost in shadow.
The small scale of this picture combined with the depiction of the frame might suggest that Corot was not painting from a real model, but was copying an existing painting or even a photograph.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Seated Woman
- Artist
- Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
- Artist dates
- 1796 - 1875
- Date made
- 1855-65
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 36.2 × 27 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1934
- Inventory number
- NG4733
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
In the Corot studio sale, Paris, 26 May to 9 June 1875, lot 459, where bought for 275 francs by Henri Rouart (1833–1912), industrialist, collector and artist who exhibited at the exhibitions of the Impressionists; his sale, Galerie Manzi‐Joyant, Paris, 9 December 1912, lot 138, bought, in all probability, by one of his sons, Ernest Rouart (1874–1942), for 10,500 francs; after 1930 in the collection of the art critic and collector Paul Guillaume (1891–1934), Paris, from whom purchased out of the Temple West Fund, 1934.
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.
Bibliography
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1891A. Dagot, 'A travers les collections Parisiennes, collection Henri Rouart', L'Art dans les Deux Mondes, nos. 22, 23 and 31, April-June 1891, pp. 259-60, 271-3 and 52-3
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1902A. Alexandre, 'La collection de M. Henri Rouart', Les Arts, 3, 1902, pp. 14-21
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1905A. Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot: Catalogue raisonné et illustré, Paris 1905
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1912A. Alexandre, La Collection Henri Rouart, Paris 1912
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1912A. Alexandre, 'La collection Henri Rouart', Les Arts, 132, 1912, pp. 2-32
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1912Galerie Manzi-Joyart, Catalogue des tableaux anciens … tableaux modernes … composant la collection de feu M. Henri Rouart, Paris, 9 December 1912 - 11 December 1912
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1913J. Bayet, 'Vente Rouart', Larousse mensuel, 1913
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1928F. Fosca, 'Corot chez P. Rosenberg: Paysages d'Italie et figures', L'Amour de l'Art, IX, 1928, pp. 161-73
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1930J. Meier-Graefe, Corot, Berlin 1930
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1930C. Bernheim de Villers, Corot: Peintre de figures, Paris 1930
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1934R. Fry, 'A New Corot at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, 1934
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1935National Gallery, National Gallery and Tate Gallery Directors' Reports, 1934, London 1935
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1946Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, London 1946
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1957Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
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1970Davies, Martin, and Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc., London 1970
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1989G.P. Weisberg et al., J.-B. Camille Corot (exh. cat. Odakyū Gurando Gyararī, 13 September - 1 October 1989; Nabio Bijutsukan, 20 October - 14 November 1989; Sogō Bijutsukan, 18 Janayry - 25 February 1990), Tokyo 1989
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1990A. Distel, Impressionism: The First Collectors 1874-1886, New York 1990
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1991M. Clarke, Corot and the Art of Landscape, London 1991
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2019Herring, Sarah, National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings, 1, The Barbizon School, London 2019
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 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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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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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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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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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,...
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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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...
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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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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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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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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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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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...
On display elsewhere
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...
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...
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...
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....
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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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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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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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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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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Follower of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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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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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