A Woman Gathering Faggots at Ville-d'Avray
ca. 1871–74
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
28 3/8 x 22 1/2 in. (72.1 x 57.2 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917
Accession Number
17.120.225
Tags
Art Historical Context
In Camille Corot's *A Woman Gathering Fagg at Ville-d'Avray (ca. 1871–74), a solitary woman bends to collect bundles of sticks in a lush forest glade, capturing the quiet poetry of rural labor. Painted late in the artist's life, this oil on canvas (28 3/8 x 22 1/2 in.) reflects Corot's deep affinity for the landscapes near his home in Ville-d'Avray, a west of Paris where he often retreated to paint en plein air. The scene evokes the simplicity of everyday life amid nature's embrace, with dappled light filtering through dense foliage. Corot, a master of the Barbizon school and a bridge to Impr...
About the Artist
Camille Corot · 1796–1875
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, born in Paris on July 16, 1796, into a prosperous bourgeois family—his father a former wig maker turned draper, his mother a successful milliner—initially resisted his artistic calling. After a lackluster education at the Lycée Pierre-Corneille in Rouen and failed apprenticeships in business, he abandoned commerce at age 26, thanks to a generous parental allowance foll...