Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011198Landscape (The Large Tree)
About the Artwork
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot used sticks of charcoal, a powdery black medium, to dramatic effect in this late-career landscape, layering them and turning them on their side to form tonal areas and fine lines. Describing the period when the drawing was made, a colleague wrote that “one never saw [Corot] without . . . charcoal in his hand.” Such artworks conveyed the poetry the artist saw in nature and advanced his lifelong ambition of elevating landscape from the lowly status it held at the conservative French Academy. Here, he aimed to capture an evocative mood rather than a specific place, describing such works as “souvenirs,” or remembrances.
Inscriptions
inscribed, lower left, in charcoal: COROT
Provenance
?-1904: James Staats Forbes [1823-1904], London 1907: (Obach & Co., London, England) ?-?: (Allan Frumkin [1927-2002], Chicago, IL) by 1965-before 1981: Victor Carlson [1934-2018], Baltimore, MD 1981: (Shepherd Gallery, New York, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH) 1981-2008: Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH March 2, 2009: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002). Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-June 11, 2023).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875)
- Date
- c. 1865–70
- Medium
- charcoal with stumping, erasing, and wet brushwork on light brown wove paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 24.2 x 41.8 cm (9 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.386
More by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011198
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