Residencies

Fontainebleau:
Oak Trees at Bas-Bréau:
Camille Corot French

NOT ON VIEW: (Gallery 1832 or 1833)

  • Title: Fontainebleau: Oak Trees at Bas-Bréau

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

  • Date: 1832 or 1833

  • Medium: Oil on paper, laid down on wood

  • Dimensions: 15 5/8 x 19 1/2 in. (39.7 x 49.5 cm)

  • Classification: Drawings

  • Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1979

  • Object Number: 1979.404

  • Curatorial Department:European Paintings

Corot painted this study in the summer of 1832 or 1833 in Bas-Bréau, a section of Fontainebleau forest that was famous for its immense oak trees. It was executed in the naturalistic style that he had previously developed in Italy. The tree reappears in Hagar in the Wilderness, the large canvas he exhibited at the 1835 Paris Salon. Improbably, in his realization of that biblical scene, Corot transplanted the oak from northern France to the Palestine desert.

“The most important things in a painting are Form and Value.
Color comes last – like a friend you welcome.”
— Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot