JEAN-BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT
French, 1796–1875
Ville d’Avray - Sur les Hauteurs
Signed COROT Oil on canvas
16¾ x 27 inches (42.5 x 68.5 cm), Framed: 23 x 34 inches (58.5 x 86.3 cm)
Provenance: Jean-Baptiste Faure, Paris (sale, Charles Pillet, Paris, June 7, 1873, lot 3, illustrated, as Les Hauteurs de Ville d’Avray) Estate of Clement B. Newbold, Philadelphia (sale, Sotheby’s, New York, February 22, 1989, lot 34, illustrated) Private Collection, Connecticut (acquired at the above sale, to the present) Literature Alfred Robaut, L’Oeuvre de Corot: Catalogue Raisonné et Illustré, Paris, 1905, vol. III, p. 80, no. 1486, illustrated
Painted circa 1865-70, this work depicts two young women conversing with a laborer in a field above Ville d’Avray, with a view of the silhouettes of the monuments of Paris on the horizon. The first owner of this painting was Jean-Baptiste Faure, the famous Parisian operatic baritone. Faure was an avid collector of paintings by Corot and the Impressionists. He sat for several portraits by Manet and owned many of his paintings, including Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (Musée d’Orsay). Similarly, he owned Monet’s Le Pont d’Argenteuil (Musée d’Orsay), along with more than sixty other paintings by the artist.