Detail of Ville d'Avray by Corot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2010

Title: Ville-d'Avray

Artist: Camille Corot (French, Paris 1796–1875 Paris)

Date: 1870

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 21 5/8 x 31 1/2 in. (54.9 x 80 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887

Accession Number: 87.15.141

Corot often painted views of the large pond on the property he had inherited from his parents at Ville-d'Avray. In repeating the scene, he took certain liberties, especially with the tree just left of center. The silhouette of branches and foliage against the pewter sky led Corot's biographer Alfred Robaut to liken this work to a spider's web. Corot initially included a child with outstretched arms beside the crouching peasant woman, but he seems to have found this detail too anecdotal. Critics admired the calm poetry of this composition when it was first exhibited at the 1870 Salon.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435988