Portrait of a Young Girl
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot·1850 or 1859
Historical Context
Corot's Portrait of a Young Girl from 1850 or 1859 represents his relatively rare engagement with portraiture alongside his primary career as a landscape painter. Corot painted portraits throughout his life but rarely exhibited them, treating them as private works rather than public demonstrations of his capabilities. His female portraits and figure studies of the 1850s-1870s combine the tonal sensibility he developed as a landscape painter — the subtle gradations of grey and silver that gave his late landscapes their distinctive 'silvery' quality — with an intimate psychological directness that gave his portraits a quality of absorbed inner life unusual in the genre.
Technical Analysis
Corot's figure technique shares the soft, atmospheric quality of his landscapes, with warm, luminous flesh tones and gentle modeling. The brushwork is fluid and descriptive, with the girl's features captured with sympathetic directness. The muted, harmonious palette creates an intimate mood of quiet contemplation.
Provenance
(Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 25 March 1922, no. 57); purchased by Frederick Manaud, Paris;[1] (Dr. Alfred Gold [1874-1958], Berlin);[2] sold 1926 to (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, Ltd., London); sold 1927 through (Hodebert, Paris) to Dr. Albert C. Barnes [1873-1951], Merion, Pennsylvania; sold to (Etienne Bignou, Paris); sold 8 May 1930 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA. [1] An annotated copy of the 25 March 1922 sale catalogue in the M. Knoedler library gives the buyer as Manaud. Reid & Lefèvre Pictures Sold, sheet no. 298, #258/29 B 1642, as "Figure," lists the acquisition date as 28 November 1928 and Frederick Manaut as from whom the painting was acquired (Lefèvre archives, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, Tate Britain, London, TGA 2002/11, Box 283). [2] Letter from Reid and Lefèvre, dated 20 July 1964, in NGA curatorial files, gives the 1926 acquisition date, and the 1927 sale to Barnes. The 1928 date cited in note one above is probably when the picture was re-acquired by Reid & Lefèvre's partner Bignou.
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