Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

Vente Hoschedé, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, April 20, 1875, lot 20
M. Jacquet (acquired at the above sale)
Arnold et Tripp, Paris
Sedelmeyer, Paris
Fabbri, Paris
Paul Rosenberg, Paris
Georges Bernheim, Paris
Maurice Barret-Decap (and sold, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 12, 1929, lot 3)
Wildenstein & Co., New York
Mrs. Lucy Smith Battson (acquired from the above in 1957, and sold, her estate, Sotheby's, New York, October 13, 1993, lot 15, illustrated)
Richard Green, London 
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Alfred Robaut, L'oeuvre de Corot: catalogue raisonné et illustré, 1965, vol. III, no. 2110, illustrated p. 282

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work could be hung in its current condition. While it is not noticeably dirty and there do not appear to be any retouches of any note within the foreground or the lower sky, there are rather broad and probably unnecessary retouches in the upper sky, not including the corners but certainly in the center. In works of this kind by Corot, the sky is often left intentionally sketchy. What is seen in the upper left corner is more of an indication of Corot's technical approach to these areas. While a few retouches may be necessary, this is a picture that is unnecessarily restored in my view.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Corot’s love of the landscape was something that stayed with him throughout his long career.  In the last years of his life, perhaps because of the turbulence of the Franco-Prussian War, he especially took solace in the peaceful, natural surroundings of the countryside.  In February 1871, he wrote to his fellow painter, Le Rochenoire: “I have turned out more work than usual.  The plight of our country, it seems, has driven me to take cover under the vault of heaven and a roof of leafage, and to hunt out the best places for listening to the concert of the birds” (as quoted in Jean Leymarie, Corot, Geneva, 1985, p. 143).

Painted in May 1873, Saintry près du Corbeil, La route blanche is representative of the finest examples of Corot’s late landscapes.  Characterized by a delicate palette, sunlit shadows and quick feathery brushwork, this is the sort of painting that inspired a later generation of French artists and provided the foundation for what we now know as Impressionism.   It should be considered more than a landscape painting as Corot has also included an element of anecdote in the three separate figure groups in the foreground, not to mention the peasant and cow that appear hidden in the overgrown foliage, staring out directly at the viewer.    

This work was featured in the famous Hoschedé sale in Paris in 1875, which also included fifteen additional paintings by Corot, eleven by Courbet and a version of Millet’s Des Glaneuses.  Writing in the introduction to the Hoschedé catalogue, the well-known French art critic, Ernest Chesneau, considered La route blanche, one of the “four pearls in the collection” (as translated from the French, Hoschedé sale catalogue, 1875, p. 7).