Honfleur: Calvary
ca. 1830
Medium
Oil on wood
Dimensions
11 3/4 x 16 1/8 in. (29.8 x 41 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Bernhard Gift, by exchange, 1974
Accession Number
1974.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the serene landscape of *Honfleur: Calvary (ca. 1830), Camille Corot captures the coastal Normandy town of Honfleur with a poignant religious motif at its heart. This intimate oil on wood panel depicts a roadside Calvary cross amid rolling hills and figures, including Christ, blending natural beauty with spiritual symbolism. Painted when Corot was in his early thirties, it reflects his deep affinity for the French countryside, honed during travels through Normandy after his formative years in Italy. Corot, master of the Barbizon school and precursor to Impressionism, revolutionized landsca...
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...