Unknown_Corot-2012

10 . View of Paris from the North-East , c. 1830–35

Graphite and watercolor on paper 13 × 19 ½ inches ( 33 . 0 × 49 . 5 cm)

provenance Private Collection, Paris.

This carefully delineated combination of landscape and townscape depicts an outdoor tavern with figures serving, waiting for service, or departing for the city. Sharply rendered buildings interspersed with poplar trees define the extensive mid-ground space, while identifiable Parisian monuments rise against the sky in the distance. From left to right are the dome of the Val de Grace, the dome of the Pantheon, which sits high on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, and Notre Dame. Two large trees in the foreground left of center establish the scale and spatial distances between the scene’s many elements. The relationship between the monuments and the elevated topography of the foreground suggest that the point of view for this drawing is from Belleville. Seen at the right are the windmills of Montmartre. An engraving of c. 1815 after a drawing of Père Lachaise cemetery by Courvoiser-Voisin shows at a distance the same configuration of monuments. Located north-east of central Paris, and now occupying much of the 20 th arrondissement, Belleville was an independent commune until 1860 . From the late 18 th century, it was also known to Parisians as one of the villages just outside the Paris tax barrier where wine could be purchased much more cheaply than inside the city, giving rise to rustic wine taverns called “guinguettes.” It appears from the contents of the foreground—the two wooden barrels on the left; the woman carrying a tray toward three seated figures; and the standing, aproned figure—that the subject is one of these simple wine taverns. This drawing is particularly striking in the way it composes and renders its view according to the lessons Corot had learned during his first trip to Italy from 1825– 1828 . In Corot’s own estimation, his studies of the Roman cityscape viewed from the elevated, landscaped viewpoint of the Farnese gardens were the great achievements of that sojourn and among the very best works of his career. In fact, he bequeathed two such oil studies to the Louvre. As in many of Corot’s drawings of the Roman countryside, the present drawing sets up effective contrasts and spatial dynamics between the large, open foreground and the tight rendering and complex incidents of the mid-and background, crowned by the city in the far, high distance.

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