Souvenir of the Sole Valley (Souvenir de la Vallee de la Sole)
Medium
cliché-verre
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Print Purchase Fund (Rosenwald Collection)
Accession Number
1967.18.31
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's *Souvenir of the Sole Valley* (1871) captures the serene beauty of the French countryside in Vallée de la Sole, a region that inspired many of the artist's landscape works. Created late in Corot's career, this print reflects his lifelong passion for nature's subtle light and atmosphere, hallmarks of the Barbizon school and early Realism. As a master of poetic landscapes, Corot often evoked a sense of nostalgic memory—fitting for a title like "Souvenir." The artwork's medium, cliché-verre, is a fascinating 19th-century technique blending drawing and early photogra...
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...