Boatman among the Reeds
ca. 1865
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
23 1/2 x 32 in. (59.7 x 81.3 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931
Accession Number
32.100.136
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the tranquil landscape *Boatman among the Reeds painted around 1865 by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, a lone figure rows gently through a lush stand of reeds under a soft, diffused sky. Corot, a leading figure of the Barbizon School and a bridge to Impressionism, captured the poetic beauty of nature during his mature years. This oil on canvas, measuring 23½ x 32 inches, reflects the 19th-century fascination with rural France, evoking the quiet serenity of the French countryside near Paris or the Seine River valleys that inspired him. Corot's masterful technique shines in his loose brushwork ...
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...