Unknown_Corot-2012

25 . Landscape—Souvenir du Lac de Nemi , c. 1864

Verso: Study of Trees Charcoal on toned wove paper 9 ½ × 13 inches ( 24 × 33 cm) Signed bottom right

provenance Private Collection; Jill Newhouse Gallery ( 2011 ).

Private Collection

This drawing is related to Corot’s important painting Souvenir du Lac de Nemi of 1864– 1865 (Art Institute of Chicago). This painting was one of Corot’s favorite compositions and received a great deal of attention when it was shown at the Salon of 1865 . Two years later Corot submitted it to the 1867 Exposition Universelle where it was awarded a gold medal. Many of Corot’s highly finished charcoal drawings of the later years were related to Salon paintings and presented as gifts to artists and intimate friends. According to Robaut, the composition of Nemi was often reproduced: in 1865 in an etching by Martial Pitémont; in a wood engraving by Boetzel; and in a lithograph by Pridon published in l’Artiste in which the composition was reversed. In addition, Corot himself revisited the composition several times: in an ink drawing after the painting in Autographe de Salon (R IV, no. 2980 ); in a large charcoal drawing (R IV, no. 2958 ) executed in 1864 in Arras in the company of Dutilleux; and in an 1871 cliché-verre that Corot designed in Arras in 1871 in the company of Robaut and other friends. As with several of Corot’s most compelling Salon paintings from his later years, the Souvenir du Lac de Nemi was partly informed by earlier studies and paintings directly related to Corot’s travels in Italy. The motif of a multi-trunked tree, bending its arms

Souvenir du Lac de Nemi, 1871