Unknown_Corot-2012

sketches for the painting are now in the Louvre (RF 18701 / 08728 ) and the Musée Carnavalet (DO 3593 ). Corot sketched the composition of La Toilette , alongside a sketch of his other Salon painting of 1859 , Dante and Virgil , in a letter to the painter Édouard Brandon on November 27 , 1858 (Robaut I, p. 192 , illus.). The sketch shows the figures in the same positions as the final painting, which would suggest a date no later than 1858 for the present sheet. A charcoal ricordo after the completed painting, which Corot made for his friend and protégé Dutilleux, is now in the Louvre (RF 8817 ).