Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot french, 1796–1875

Rider Under a Tree ( Cavalier sous un arbre )

c. 1870 – 1872 Oil on paper mounted to canvas 4 7 ⁄ 8 x 11 1 ⁄ 8 inches ( 12 . 5 x 28 . 5 cm) Signed lower left

provenance Narcisse Berchère ( 1819 – 1891 ) His sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 12 , 1891 , no. 260 (as Un Gué ; sold for 1505 francs) Désiré-Alexandre-Achille Foinard (died ca. 1918 ) Private collection, France. literature Alfred Robaut. L’oeuvre de Corot: catalogue raisonné et illustré , 2 nd ed. Vols. 1 – 5 . 1905 . Reprint, Paris: Léonce Laget, 1965 , Vol. 3 , no. 2321 , illustrated p. 363 . exhibition Paris, Galerie Schmit, May 12 –June 12 , 1971 , no. 59 , illus. p. 77 . This oil sketch of a horse and rider approaching a ford was made late in Corot’s life, when the artist was in his mid- 70 s. The cavalier, or horseman, is a familiar motif within Corot’s oeuvre; similar solitary figures appear in countless paintings, drawings, and cliché-verres, such as the Grand Cavalier sous bois of 1854 , serving several purposes at once, animating the landscape, providing a sense of scale, and, as in the case of Rider Under a Tree , providing an element of subtle drama: how, we wonder, will the horse and rider manage to cross the swiftly flowing stream? The painting displays Corot’s characteristic hazy, softened