View of a Hill Town with a Crucifix
possibly 1830s
Medium
Graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 7 1/4 x 14 3/4 in. (18.4 x 37.4cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971
Accession Number
1972.118.202
Tags
Art Historical Context
Camille Corot’s “View of a Hill Town with a Crucifix,” likely created in the 1830s, captures a tranquil hillside settlement through delicate graphite lines on cream wove paper. As one of the foremost French landscape artists of the nineteenth century, Corot frequently used drawing to record the quiet poetry of rural scenes during his travels. This modest sheet, measuring roughly 7 by 14 inches, demonstrates his gift for suggesting light, space, and texture with economical strokes. The composition centers on clustered houses ascending gentle slopes, anchored by a solitary cross that lends a co...
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...