Eugène Atget 1857-1927

Sotheby Parke Bernet, 9 November 1983, Sale 5107, Lot 25

Acquired by Margaret W. Weston from the above

Monterey Museum of Art, Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston, January - April 2003

Passion and Precision: Photographs from the Collection of Margaret W. Weston (Monterey Museum of Art, 2003, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 35 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

John Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg, The Work of Atget, Volume I: Old France (The Museum of Modern Art, 1981), pl. 106

John Szarkowski, Atget (The Museum of Modern Art, 2000), pl. 37 

Margaret W. Weston acquired this photograph for her private collection in these rooms in 1983.  It is believed that no other prints of this image have appeared at auction.  Two other prints of this image have been located in institutional collections: at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.

As Atget's title indicates, the image offered here was taken on the banks of the Etang de Corot (literally 'Corot's pond') in the Ville d'Avray in the western suburbs of Paris.  Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), who owned a home nearby, was a frequent visitor to the Ville d'Avray, and the pond, initially created as a fishing reserve, was renamed in his honor.  Corot made numerous studies along the banks of the pond, including the 1862 etching Ville D'Avray, L'Etang au Batelier Soit (Melot, Graphic Art of the Pre-Impressionists, C. 2, C. 3, and C. 4) and his 1873 painting Pond at Ville-d'Avray with Leaning Tree in the collection of the Musée de Beaux-Arts, Reims. 

According to John Szarkowski, Atget photographed the Ville d'Avray on at least three occasions.  He made his first trip to the village some time between 1900 and 1910, and the image offered here, as well as another landscape view, were taken during that time.  Atget visited the area again between 1923 and 1925, and created a number of studies that strongly reflect the earlier images (cf. The Work of Atget, Volume I: Old France, pls. 104-107 and p. 175).