In the Dunes: Souvenir of the Woods at the Hague (Dans les dunes: Souvenir du bois de la Haye)
1869
Medium
Etching; second state of two
Dimensions
Plate: 5 1/8 × 7 3/4 in. (13 × 19.7 cm) Sheet: 6 7/16 × 8 11/16 in. (16.3 × 22 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Theodore De Witt, 1923
Accession Number
23.65.45
Tags
Art Historical Context
Camille Corot, a master of French landscape painting and a key figure in the Barb school, captured the serene beauty of nature in *In the Dunes:venir of the Woods at Hague* (1869). This intimate etching evokes memories of the sandy dunes and wooded paths near The Hague in the Netherlands, a place Corot likely visited during his travels. Created late in his career, it reflects his lifelong fascination with atmospheric light and subtle tonal shifts, bridging Romanticism and the emerging Impressionist movement. Printed as a second state of two, this etching demonstrates Corot's skill in the prin...
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...