Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875). Une charrette chargée de foin passant dans la campagne, circa 1870-1871...

Description

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875)
Une charrette chargée de foin passant dans la campagne, circa 1870-1871
Oil on canvas
8-1/2 x 11-1/2 inches (21.6 x 29.2 cm)
Signed lower right: Corot

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
M. Audry, acquired from the above;
Mr. & Mrs. James Oliver Ross, Houston, Texas, circa 1900;
Thence by descent.

LITERATURE:
A. Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, vol. 3, Paris, 1905, pp. 276-277, no. 2090, illustrated in black and white.

This late career work by Camille Corot is a beautiful example of the way the artist chose to approach his beloved subject of the rural French landscape toward the end of his life. Atmosphere and mood are more important than topographical accuracy. Evocation of time and place is prized over description. In its gauzy softness, this intimate scene of a hay wagon and its team of oxen glimpsed just over the brow of a hill feels like something the artist encountered by chance. His low vantage point on the wagon and the glorious blue sky stretching out behind it situate the artist within the large golden field that takes up the entire foreground. It is a testament to Corot's skill that he was able to render this empty expanse with such economy that it reads as a fluffy field of hay. With just a few chromatic adjustments of yellow and ochre veering into green, Corot conveyed a hint of a cast shadow and crumpled grass. A few judicious daubs and swipes of brown read as depressions in the soil, bare spots, clots of earth. Such mastery can only stem from a lifetime of painting. His atmospheric layering of pigments and delicate, carefully-placed touches of paint, thick in places like the clouds and peasant women's headscarves, but then very thin in others creates exciting visual texture. As Corot himself wrote, "I'm never in a hurry to arrive at details; the masses and the general character of a picture interest me more than anything else."

This painting was formerly owned by Mr. and Mrs. James Oliver Ross, who in 1911 built the fashionable seven-story Rossonian, Houston's most exclusive, state-of-the-art apartment-hotel of the time. It had a roof garden, restaurant and tearoom, and one of the most sought-after amenities for southern living-an ice maker in every room! The Rosses traveled regularly to Europe and likely purchased this painting while abroad. Their granddaughter remembers seeing it on display in their home for many years.


More information about Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. See also: Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot Artist.



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