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We look slightly down onto a man riding a white horse away from us on a dirt road winding through a sun-drenched, rocky landscape in this horizontal painting. The man wears a cobalt-blue jacket and soft black hat, and the rutted path he follows cuts along the side of a steep hill or mountain peak. The path extends from the bottom center of the composition and stretches up the right side toward a grove of sage-green trees with brown trunks. The trees fill the upper right half of the composition, and the tallest ones almost brush the top edge of the canvas. Closer examination reveals a person in a brown coat in the shade of the trees, just off the path ahead. Seen from the hips up, they face our right in profile. Scrubby plants, bushes, and saplings in tones of kelly, pea, and fern green sprout among the boulders that line the road. A broken, bare, segment of a silvery-gray tree trunk lies along the path to our left. Lit with brilliant sunlight coming from the lower left, the horse and rider, and the boulders lining the path cast mauve-purple shadows along the ochre-brown road. The rocky terrain to the left dips down into a valley and is in deep shadow. A mountain across the valley is also deep in shadow, painted dark brown. The landscape becomes steel gray and then hazy blue as it recedes into the deep distance. The horizon comes about halfway up the canvas. Gray and white clouds are scattered across a sky that deepens from pale blue along the top edge to nearly white at the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower left, “COROT. 1838.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

A View near Volterra, 1838

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 93

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 69.9 x 95.5 cm (27 1/2 x 37 5/8 in.)

framed: 94 x 120.3 cm (37 x 47 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Collection

Accession Number

1963.10.111

Artists / Makers

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (artist) French, 1796 - 1875

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower left: COROT. / 1838

Provenance

Baronne Thénard, Paris; (her estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 19 November 1931, no. 22, as Souvenir d'Italie); purchased by (Paul Rosenberg et Cie., London, New York, and Paris); sold 2 November 1932 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

[1] Annotated copy of 1931 Hôtel Drouot sale catalogue in M. Knoedler & Co. library.

Associated Names

Dale, Chester
Drouot, Hôtel
Rosenberg & Co., Paul P.
Thénard, Baronne

Exhibition History

1838: Salon of 1838, Paris, no. 342, as Vue prise à Volterra, Toscane

1932: Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932, no. 298, repro. pl. 32

1933: A Century of Progress, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 234, repro.

1936: Corot. Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, 1936, no. 35, repro.

1936: Exposition Corot, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, 1936, no. 28, repro.

1965: The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1933: Art News 31 (20 May 1933): 8, repro.

1933: Bulliet, C.J. Art Masterpieces of a Century of Progress, Fine Arts Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. 2 vols. Chicago, 1933: 2:no. 124, repro.

1933: Fine Arts 20 (June 1933): 31, repro.

1933: Formes 33 (1933): 382, repro.

1936: Bazin, Germain. "Corot et son oeuvre." L'Amour de l'art 17 (February 1936): 43, fig. 12.

1937: George, Waldemar. "L'Art français et l'espirit de suite." La Renaissance 20 (1937): 23-24, repro.

1941: Catalogue of French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 2, pl. III.

1941: Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Now the Great French 19th Century in the National Gallery." Art News 40, no. 17 (December 15-31, 1941):repro. p. 18

1942: Bazin, Germain. Corot. Paris, 1942: 116, no. 47, repro.

1942: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 20, repro.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 154, color repro.

1944: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1944: 20, repro.

1953: French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1953: 29, repro.

1955: Cooke, Hereward Lester. Galeria National de Washington. Madrid, 1955: 319, repro. (German ed. 1971).

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 151.

1958: Fosca, François. Corot: sa vie et son oeuvre. Brussels, 1958: 79, no. 31, repro.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 248, repro.

1965: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 37, repro.

1965: Roberts, Keith. Corot. London, 1965: 42, color pl. 16.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 31.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:410, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 23, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 78, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 434, no. 627, color repro. 435.

1979: Leymarie, Jean. Corot. New York, 1979: repro. 69.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 106, pl. 94.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 430, no. 615, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 98, repro.

1988: Wissman, Fronia. J.-B.-C. Corot: View of Volterra. Timken Art Gallery, San Diego, 1988: fig. 16, note 15.

1989: Wissman, Fronia. Corot's Salon Paintings: Sources from French Classicism to Contemporary Theater Design. Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1989: 20-21.

1991: Clarke, Michael. Corot and the Art of Landscape. London, 1991: 46, 49, fig. 49.

1997: Clark, Kenneth. Landscape into Art. London, 1997: 157, no. 92, repro.

2000: Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 39-44, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 357, no. 290, color repro.