Unknown_Corot-2012

12 . The Banks of the Seine at Rouen, View from the Grand Cours , 1833

Graphite on paper 5 1 ⁄ 8

× 7 ½ inches ( 13 × 19 cm) Inscribed bottom right: Lundi 19 août/ endroit de l’exercice des conscrits et des voyous Signed on the mount lower right: Alfred Robaut Inscribed and dated by an unknown hand on the mount lower left: . . . . (illeg) 1861

Private Collection, Rouen

Corot recorded this view of Rouen from a well-known promenade called the Grand Cours or Cours de la Reine . Tourist guides from the 1820 s and 1830 s describe the promenade’s lush alleys of elms, depicted at left, the steamboats in the Seine, the clusters of houses and commercial buildings, and the elegant spire and towers of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Rouen. The drawing is related to a painting that Corot exhibited at the 1834 Salon . Submitted under the title Une marine , the painting is also known as Les Quais Marchands de Rouen ( The Merchants’ Quays at Rouen, Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen). In a letter of February 26 , 1833 , Corot described this work as a depiction of the Rouen quays: “j’ai mis en train une marine rouennaise. C’est sur une toile de cinq pieds et demi, c’est composé de petits navires, deux fabriques chaumières et de fonds. Si Ruysdael et Van de Velde voulaient m’aider, cela ne me nuirait pas.” (“I’ve started a Rouen seascape. It’s on a canvas of five and a half feet, it’s composed of small ships, two cottage factories, and a background. If Ruysdael and Van de Velde wanted to help me, that wouldn’t hurt.”) (Paris, Ottowa and New York, p. 111 ). In the 1820 s and 1830 s Corot made several trips to Normandy, travelling, drawing, and painting in the region around Rouen and sometimes further afield. He would stay with the Sennegons, who lived in the village of Bois-Guillame just outside the city. In 1833 he visited Normandy twice. Corot’s correspondence places him at the Sennegons’ at Bois-Guillame in

Les Quais Marchands de Rouen , 1834 , Musée des Beaux Arts, Rouen