Souvenir of the Environs of Lake Nemi

1865

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875)

This scene is imbued with a sense of quiet and stillness, broken only by the lone female bather pulling herself out of the water by a branch. Although the setting is a real hillside lake he visited in northern Italy, Camille Corot painted the view from memory, having returned to Paris in 1843 from the last of three trips to the region. Thus, rather than presenting an accurate record of the location, the painting is a picturesque souvenir, with the topography transformed as much by the artist’s silvery-gray and deep-green palette as by his fond reminiscences.

Status: On View, Gallery 224
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
Title: Souvenir of the Environs of Lake Nemi
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1865
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: Corot 1865
Dimensions: 98.4 × 134.3 cm (38 3/4 × 52 7/8 in.); Framed: 120.7 × 156.9 × 8.9 cm (47 1/2 × 61 3/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Bequest of Florence S. McCormick
Reference Number: 1979.1280
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/59002/manifest.json

M. Boetzel, Le Salon: Cinquante tableaux et sculptures, dessinés par les Artistes exposants (paris, Bureau de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1865), ill, no page no.
D’Arpentigny, “Salon de 1865,” Le Courrier artistique (June 25, 1865), p. 222.
Alph. Audéoud, “Salon de 1865,” Revue indépendante 24 (1864–1865), p. 750.
Louis Auvray, “Salon de 1865. III,” Revue artistique et littéraire 8 (1865), p. 239.
Louis Gallet, Salon de 1865 (Paris: Le Bailly, 1865), p. 11.
Théophile Gautier, “Salon de 1865. V. Peinture,” Le Moniteur universel (June 18, 1865), p. 835.
Felix Jahyer, Étude sur les beaux-arts: Salon de 1865 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1865), pp. 182–84.
Léon Lagrange, “Le Salon de 1865,” Le Correspondant 29 (1865), p. 153.
Louis de Laincel, Promenade aux Champs-Élysées (Paris: E. Dentu, 1865), p. 94.
Charles de Moüy, “Salon de 1865,” Revue française 11 (1865), p. 202.
Charles Rolland, “Le Salon 1865,” L’Universel 7 (June 29, 1865), p. 202.
“Salon de 1865,” Almanach de la littérature, de théâtre et des beaux-arts (1866), p. 66.
Henri Dumesnil Corot: souvenirs intimes (Paris: Rapilly, 1875), p. 48.
“London Exhibitions: Society of French Artists,” Art Journal 2 (1876), p. 62.
“The Morgan Collection of Paintings,” Art Amateur 13, 5 (1885), p. 89.
M. G. van Rensselaer, “Corot,” The Century 38 (1889), pp. 264 (ill.), 269.
“The Barye Exhibition,” American Architect and Building News 27, 732 (1890), p. 11.
“The Barye Monument Fund Exhibition,” Art Amateur 22, 3 (1890), p. 54.
David Croal Thomson, The Barbizon School of Painters: Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Daubigny, Etc. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1902), pp. 44, 46 (ill.).
Alfred Robaut, L’Oeuvre de Corot (Paris: Léonce Laget, 1905; reprinted 1965), vol. 1, pp. 222, 235, 236, 238; vol. 3, pp. 146, 147 (ill.), no. 1636; vol. 4, pp. 169, 270, 371.
“$85,000 is Paid for Corot Painting,” New York Times (January 25, 1912), p. 1.
Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Corot raconté par lui-même, vol. 2 (Paris: Henri Laurents, 1924), pp. 17, 171–2, fig. 192.
Louis Guinon, Petite histoire de la maison de Corot à Ville-d’Avray (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1925), p. 9.
Germain Bazin, Corot (Paris: Éditions Pierre Tisné, 1942), pp. 106, 107.
André Coquis, Corot et la critique contemporaine (Paris: Dervy, 1959), pp. 99–103.
Germain Bazin, Corot (Paris: Hachette, 1973), p. 270.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1979–80 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1980), p. 31
Michael Clarke, “Impressionism and Its Origins,” in National Galleries of Scotland, Lighting up the Landscape: French Impressionism and Its Origins, exh. cat. (Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1986), p. 17.
Richard R. Brettell, French Salon Artists, 1800–1900 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago and New York: H. N. Abrams, 1987), pp. 68 (ill.), 69, 71 (ill.), 117.
Michael Clarke, Corot and the Art of Landscape (London: British Museum, 1991), pp. 84, 135, 138, fig. 125.
Charles Harrison, “The Effects of Landscape,” in W. J. T. Mitchell, ed., Landscape and Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 224–5, fig. 7.6; second edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
Gérard de Wallens, Corot, exh. cat. (Paris: Grand Palais, 1996), pp. 28, 137.
“Corot révélé,” Connaissance des arts, special edition: Corot (1996), p. 55, fig. 49.
Gérard de Wallens, “‘Der Spiegel der Diana’: Der Nemisee – Quelle der Inspiration für das Werk von Camille Corot,” Belvedere: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 5, 1 (1999), pp. 93–94, 95, fig. 12.
Chiara Stefani, “Italia,” in Vincent Pomarède, Corot: naturaleza, emoción, recuerdo, exh. cat. (Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2005), pp. 139, 140, fig. 2.9.
Nathalie Michel-Szelechowska, “Della continuità del paesaggio ‘composito’,” in Vincent Pomarède, Corot e l’arte moderna: souvenirs et impressions, exh. cat. (Verona: Palazzo della Gran Guardia, 2009), pp. 106, 107, fig. 9.

Paris, Salon de 1865, 1865, no. 507.
Paris, Exposition Universelle de 1867, 1867, cat. 164.
Paris, L’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition de l’oeuvre de Corot, 1875, cat. 23.
New York, American Art Galleries, The Works of Antoine-Louis Barye, November 1889, cat. 584.
Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, Shikago Bijutsukan Insho-ha ten (The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago), October 18–December 17, 1985, no. 7; Fukuoka Art Museum, January 5–February 2, 1986; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, March 4–April 13, 1986.
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Lighting up the Landscape: French Impressionism and Its Origins, August 1–October 19, 1986, cat. 13.
Leningrad [St. Petersburg], Hermitage Museum, Ot Delakrua do Matissa: shedevry frantsuzskoĭ zhivopici XIX-nachala XX veka, iz Muieia Metropoliten v Niu-Ĭorke i Khudozhestvennogo Instituta v Chikago [From Delacroix to Matisse: Great Paintings From the XIX century to the Beginning of the XXth century From Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago], March 15-May 19, 1988, cat. 5; Moscow, Pushkin Museum, June 10-July 30, 1988.
Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Corot 1796-1875, February 27 – May 27, 1996, cat. 127; Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, June 21- September 22, 1996; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 22, 1996 – January 19, 1997.

M. L. by 1867 [lent to Paris 1867]. Albert Hecht (died 1889), Paris, by 1875 [lent to Paris 1875]. William Schaus, New York, by 1884 [this and the following according to 1912 Morgan sale catalogue, below]; sold to Mary J. Morgan (died 1885); her estate sale, American Art Association, New York, March 3–5, 1886, lot 216, for $14,000 to Thomas Newcomb [price and buyer according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the William Randolph Hearst Archive, Long Island University]; Thomas Newcomb (died 1901), New York; his widow, Alice Newcomb, New York; her estate sale, The American Art Galleries, New York, January 24, 1912, no. 26, as Lake Nemi for $85,000 to W. W. Seaman as agent, possibly on behalf of Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. [price and buyer as agent according to New York Times 1912]. Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. (died 1936), Chicago, by 1923 [according to loan documentation, Art Institute Archives]; on intermittent loan to the Art Institute, from 1923 [according to documentation cited above]; his estate; portion of the estate that passed to his son, Cyrus McCormick III (died 1970), Chicago, October 15, 1941 [according to a letter from Judson F. Stone to McCormick Properties Investments dated October 15, 1941, copy in curatorial file]; his second wife Florence Nicks Sittenham Davey McCormick (died 1979), New York; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1979.

Robaut no. 1636, related works :

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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