Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875). Le torrent pierreux (crépuscule), circa 1865-1870. Oi...

Description

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875)
Le torrent pierreux (crépuscule), circa 1865-1870
Oil on canvas
19-1/4 x 24-3/8 inches (48.9 x 61.9 cm)
Signed lower left: Corot

PROVENANCE:
Admiral Constant Jean Benjamin Jaurès (1823-1889), Paris;
His sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 12, 1889, lot 3;
Knoedler & Co., New York, 1893;
Henry Graves Sr. (1838-1906), Orange, New Jersey;
His sale: American Art Association, New York, February 26, 1909, lot 12 (as Twilight);
Knoedler & Co., New York, in partnership with Boussod, Valadon et Cie, Glaenzer, and Arnold & Tripp, acquired from the above;
Roebel & Reinhardt Galleries, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, acquired from the above, 1909;
Knoedler & Co., New York, by 1912;
Mary Boyd McCormick (1868-1930), Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, acquired from the above, 1913;
Her husband, Henry Buchler McCormick (1869-1939), Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, inherited from the above, 1930;
American Art Association, New York, December 14, 1933, lot 71;
C. G. Howard, acquired from the above;
Mrs. George L. Eaton (Alice Joslyn Eaton, 1876-1954), Pelham Manor, New York;
Her sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, February 23, 1955, lot 38;
R. Willard, acquired from the above;
Grant Suiter (1908-1983), Brooklyn, New York;
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, October 23, 1974, lot 202;
James Levy, New York, acquired from the above;
Sotheby's, New York, November 1, 1995, lot 32;
Private collection, acquired from the above;
Sotheby's, New York, November 21, 2017, lot 46;
Private collection, Bethesda, Maryland, acquired from the above.

LITERATURE:
A. Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré, vol. 3, Paris, 1905, pp. 218-219, no. 1910, illustrated in black and white.

This lot is accompanied by a 1994 letter of authenticity from Martin Dieterle. Claire Lebeau and Martin Dieterle re-confirmed the authenticity of this work in April 2015.

This masterful scene of a solitary figure in a bright red cap pausing at the edge of a tumbling stream to look up at the fading light and streaks of sunset encapsulates all the best qualities of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's great landscapes. By the late 1860s when he painted Le torrent pierreux (crépuscule), the artist had immersed himself in nature, the source of his artistic inspiration, for over 40 years, and knew his subject so thoroughly that painting what he loved seemed an act of effortless grace. Nonetheless, the work is one of surprising complexity achieved through the artist's judicious use of thinly applied glazes and scumbles of browns, greens, blues, and gray. With this technique, Corot's trees sway fluidly and leaves seem to tremble with a delicate breeze, while the water rushing over rocks in the foreground is reduced to a blur in places, such is its speed. The landscape is at once in motion and incredibly serene.

Executed at the peak of Corot's powers, Le torrent pierreux (crépuscule) was, in the words of Etienne Moreau-Nélaton, "One of those evening paintings, golden and melancholy, that were a specialty of his and that he rendered with such deep feeling" (E. Moreau-Nélaton, Corot: Biographie critique, Paris, 1913, p. 72). It is this quality in Corot's later landscapes that prompted Théodore de Banville to write, "This is not a landscape painter, this is the very poet of the landscape...who breathes the sadness and joys of nature...The bond, the great bond that makes us brothers of brooks and trees, he sees it; his figures, as poetic as his forests, are not strangers to the woodland that surrounds them. He knows more than anyone, he has discovered all the customs of boughs and leaves; and now that he is sure that he will not destroy their inner life, he can dispense with all servile imitation" (T. de Banville, "Le Salon de 1861," La Revue fantaisiste, vol. 2, July 1, 1861, pp. 235-236).


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

Estimate: $70,000 - $100,000.

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