Souvenir of the Environs of Lake Nemi

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875)

1865

Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
98.4 × 134.3 cm (38 3/4 × 52 7/8 in.); Framed: 120.7 × 156.9 × 8.9 cm (47 1/2 × 61 3/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
Culture
France
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line
Bequest of Florence S. McCormick
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the Art Institute of Chicago

About this work

This scene is imbued with a sense of quiet and stillness, broken only by the lone female bather pulling herself out of the water by a branch. Although the setting is a real hillside lake he visited in northern Italy, Camille Corot painted the view from memory, having returned to Paris in 1843 from the last of three trips to the region. Thus, rather than presenting an accurate record of the location, the painting is a picturesque souvenir, with the topography transformed as much by the artist’s silvery-gray and deep-green palette as by his fond reminiscences.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0