Souvenir of Antibes (Souvenir d'Antibes)
Medium
cliché-verre
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Print Purchase Fund (Rosenwald Collection)
Accession Number
1967.18.38
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-dappled landscapes of southern France with *Souvenir of Antibes (Souvenir d'Antibes)*, a captivating 1874 print by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The renowned French artist (1796–1875), a pillar of the Barbizon school and precursor to Impressionism, masterfully captured the Mediterranean charm of Antibes—a picturesque coastal town near Nice—evoking nostalgic memories of light and sea. This intimate "souvenir" reflects Corot's lifelong passion for plein-air painting, blending poetic realism with atmospheric depth. What sets this work apart is its innovative medium: *cliché-verr...
About the Artist
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, born on July 16, 1796, in Paris to a prosperous bourgeois family—his father a former wig-maker turned draper and his mother a successful milliner—was initially apprenticed in the textile trade but pursued art from his mid-twenties with family support. He studied under the neoclassical landscapist Achille Etna Michallon in 1821–1822, who taught him to sketch outdoors in...