Unknown_Corot-2012

9 . Trees in the Forest of Fontainebleau , c. 1830–35

Graphite on laid paper 11 1 ⁄ 8 x 8 7 ⁄ 8

inches ( 28 . 5 x 22 . 6 cm) Estate sale stamp lower left: Lugt 460 a Inscribed by Robaut on verso upper left: Croquis de COROT/en forêt de Fontainebleau/(provient de la vente posthume du maître)/Offert à Monsieur Allard/Alf. Robaut provenance Corot sale 1875 , part of lot 550 or 552 ; Alfred Robaut, Paris; M. Allard, Paris; Feichenfelt, Zurich; Jill Newhouse Gallery ( 1988 ). exhi b i t ions New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Romanticism and the School of Nature, 2000 , p. 50 , no. 24 .

l i terature R IV, p. 253 .

Private Collection

By the early 1800 s, open-air painting and drawing directly from the motif had become a part of classical landscape practice. As early as 1800 , Valenciennes’ influential treatise on landscape painting advised the artist to make assiduous study of the forest: “The forests of France are another vast field offering detail studies for the landscape artist . . . those of Ardennes, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, Villers-Cotterets and Navarre” (Valenciennes 1800 , p. 626 ). Corot began to sketch and paint in the Forest of Fontainebleau in 1822 , when he entered the studio of Michallon. He visited the forest more frequently after his first trip to Rome and in the 1830 s a number of his Salon paintings were set there. During this period, Corot would usually stay at the village of Chailly-en-Brière where there was growing community of artists. In later years, he often stayed at Ganne’s Inn in what became the artists’ colony of Barbizon. Like several other graphite and ink drawings that Corot made in the forest in the early-mid 1830 s, this work places great emphasis on the structure of the trees while also suggesting the density and complexity of the forest motif. Contours and diagonal hatching distinguish trunks and branches from the masses of foliage, with thicker, darker lines articulating key branches and points of connection. Clearly a working study, this drawing would have been used by Corot in conceiving large formal compositions for the Salon.