Unknown_Corot-2012

and expanding its foliage at the bank of a lake or stream—with the tree serving as a repoussoir for a view to a bank in the distance—dates back to a graphite and ink drawing of around 1826 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), one of the masterly studies that Corot executed at Civita Castellana, in the environs of Rome during his first trip to Italy. About twenty years later, an oil painting, Bords du Lac de Nemi (Philadelphia Museum of Art), established the spatial disposition of the composition’s main elements and pushed into the foreground, to great effect, the multi-trunked, gestural branches of the magnificent tree. Robaut dates this painting 1843–45 , directly following Corot’s third and final trip to Italy, where he spent a great deal of time in and around the town of Genzano and Lake Nemi.