Unknown_Corot-2012

22 . Sketchbook (Animal and figure studies, landscape studies in Isigny) , c. 1860

Graphite on paper 3 ½ x 5 5 ⁄ 8

inches ( 8 . 9 x 14 . 1 cm)

Small oblong folio, 22 leaves Estate sale wax seal on recto of upper board center: Lugt 3905 Estate sale stamp on folio 3: Lugt 460 a Sticker numbered 63 and dated 1860 on front upper board, upper right Numbered 48 on recto of end board, in red chalk Vendor’s sticker, Papétrie Gérard, Rue du Faubourg St. Denis 78, Paris, inside upper board provenance Corot sale 1875 , part of no. 571 ( 72 sketchbooks); Anonymous sale, Drouot Rive Gauche, Paris, Nov. 26 , 1976 , no. 135 (?); The Ian Woodner Family Collection, by 1993 ; Sale, Christie’s New York, May 27 , 1993 , no. 146 ; Sale, Sotheby’s New York, April 18 , 2007 , no. 166 .

l i terature R IV, no. 3085 , p. 94 , Carnet no. 48 .

Private Collection

In 1872 , as part of his ongoing documentation of Corot’s oeuvre , Robaut recorded seventy-five small sketchbooks and assigned numbers to seventy-two of these. The numbered sketchbooks were listed as no. 571 in the posthumous studio sale at Drouot in 1875 . Robaut also noted six additional sketchbooks to which he assigned letters (A – F), five of which were given to him by Corot (R IV, p. 87 ). Thirty-four of Corot’s sketchbooks, formerly in the collections of Robaut and Moreau-Nélaton, are now in the Louvre. It is likely that many of the remaining sketchbooks have been taken apart over the years. The present example consists of sketches of a variety of landscape motifs including notations of particular locations, such as a site near Fontainebleau and “herbager d’Isigny,” a pasture in Isigny-sur-mer, a canton in the Calvados region of Normandy. The many studies of cattle and horses from different points of view may well be from Isigny as well. Several pages present idyllic landscape compositions, some of which may well have been inspired by stage sets for the opera and theater. As with many of Corot’s later albums, this one includes sketches of figures in stage costume and studies of women seated in loges and standing, dressed in long capes and other formal attire. One of the most detailed drawings is a study of a peasant woman in profile (folio 3 ) who shares the page with the back of a male peasant. Robaut’s catalogue mentions one painting from this era representing Isigny or its envrions, Two Peasants Talking Near a Barrier ( Deux paysannes causant auprès d’une barrière , R II, no. 1456 ), though the painting does not seem to draw directly on the studies in this sketchbook. A particularly interesting notation may be found on the sketchbook’s final pages: 1894 - legros / figures intérieur église . This must refer to one of Alphonse Legros’s immensely well-regarded paintings of church interiors with worshipping figures, examples of which appeared at several different Salons in the 1860 s.