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Lot Essay
Many of Corot's most modern works were his portraits of women. They were admired by Degas, Cézanne and Picasso, who considered them to be even more progressive than his landscapes. Between 1860 and 1870, Corot devoted increased attention to these portraits. The result was a decade that included many of the most memorable paintings of his career - Woman with a Book in her Lap (The Art Institute of Chicago), Woman with a Pearl (The Louvre), Agostina (The National Gallery, Washington) and the only painting of a woman that Corot ever submitted to the Salon, Woman Reading in a Landscape from 1869 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
It is not known why Corot decided to devote himself to figure painting at this time in his career. Recurrent episodes of gout made it difficult for him to travel into the countryside. This may have forced him to concentrate on the human body as his figure paintings were always composed in his studio. The girls and young women whom he transformed into Venus, Diana or a Bacchante were professional models - often Italian beauties living on the rue Mouffetard in Paris. He would pose his models in his studio wearing clothing and accessories from his collection of costumes, textiles and props. According to Moreau-Nélaton, Corot's Paris studio was a lively place. When someone once commented that his model, Emma Dobigny (who also posed for Degas and Puvis de Chavannes) "prattled, sang, laughed, didn't stay put," Corot responded, "It's just that changeability that I love in her...I am not one of those specialists who makes set pieces. My object is to express life. I need a model who moves around." (A. Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot, Paris, 1905, pp. 244-45). When Corot was working with a model in his studio, he would allow only his closest fellow artists to be present. It is also believed that Corot showed his figure paintings to only his dearest friends and colleagues, retrieving them from a cabinet in his studio when he had a visitor. There was a market for these works and the collectors who purchased them were an elite and sophisticated group, who worked with select dealers such as Beugniet, Tedesco, Brame and Tempelaere. However it was not until the retrospective of Corot's work held in 1875, that the beauty and breadth of his figure pictures came to the attention of the general public. La Jeune Grecque drapé de blanc was one of the works in this exhibition.
Most likely painted between 1868 and 1870, La Jeune Grecque drapé de blanc depicts a young model wearing a colorful chotózi (the fez of old Athens) and holding a laurel wreath. Corot has wrapped her in a heavy white drapery. He was fond of dressing his models in costumes from exotic lands, but this is exactly what they were - models used as props, wearing props. Unlike other artists from this period, Corot was not interested in depicting the reality of a scene, or a subject that he had witnessed first hand. La Jeune Grecque may be compared to Corot's monumental painting of an Algerian woman painted a about the same time. (Robaut, no. 1578). Both figures are draped in white and weighted down by a triangular format. In La Jeune Grecque, Corot has transformed the heavy fabric into a masterpiece of virtuoso brushwork - overlapping broad sweeps of various shades of white ranging from blue to yellow tonalities, creating light, shadow, creases and folds. He sets her in an unidentifiable landscape under a blue sky. The subject of the Greek girl must have appealed to Corot as he also posed his favorite model, Emma Dobigny, in a Greek dress and fez a few years later (Robaut, no. 1995). He also posed the model for La Jeune Grecque wearing the same colorful fez in a painting formerly in the Havemeyer Collection, and now in the Brooklyn Museum (Robaut, no. 2147).
The earliest owner of La Jeune Grecque was a man named W. La Rochenoire, who had the painting in his possession in 1870. He most likely was one of those sophisticated collectors, who bought Corot's figure pictures during the artist's lifetime.
This painting has been examined and authenticated by Martin Dieterle.
It is not known why Corot decided to devote himself to figure painting at this time in his career. Recurrent episodes of gout made it difficult for him to travel into the countryside. This may have forced him to concentrate on the human body as his figure paintings were always composed in his studio. The girls and young women whom he transformed into Venus, Diana or a Bacchante were professional models - often Italian beauties living on the rue Mouffetard in Paris. He would pose his models in his studio wearing clothing and accessories from his collection of costumes, textiles and props. According to Moreau-Nélaton, Corot's Paris studio was a lively place. When someone once commented that his model, Emma Dobigny (who also posed for Degas and Puvis de Chavannes) "prattled, sang, laughed, didn't stay put," Corot responded, "It's just that changeability that I love in her...I am not one of those specialists who makes set pieces. My object is to express life. I need a model who moves around." (A. Robaut, L'Oeuvre de Corot, Paris, 1905, pp. 244-45). When Corot was working with a model in his studio, he would allow only his closest fellow artists to be present. It is also believed that Corot showed his figure paintings to only his dearest friends and colleagues, retrieving them from a cabinet in his studio when he had a visitor. There was a market for these works and the collectors who purchased them were an elite and sophisticated group, who worked with select dealers such as Beugniet, Tedesco, Brame and Tempelaere. However it was not until the retrospective of Corot's work held in 1875, that the beauty and breadth of his figure pictures came to the attention of the general public. La Jeune Grecque drapé de blanc was one of the works in this exhibition.
Most likely painted between 1868 and 1870, La Jeune Grecque drapé de blanc depicts a young model wearing a colorful chotózi (the fez of old Athens) and holding a laurel wreath. Corot has wrapped her in a heavy white drapery. He was fond of dressing his models in costumes from exotic lands, but this is exactly what they were - models used as props, wearing props. Unlike other artists from this period, Corot was not interested in depicting the reality of a scene, or a subject that he had witnessed first hand. La Jeune Grecque may be compared to Corot's monumental painting of an Algerian woman painted a about the same time. (Robaut, no. 1578). Both figures are draped in white and weighted down by a triangular format. In La Jeune Grecque, Corot has transformed the heavy fabric into a masterpiece of virtuoso brushwork - overlapping broad sweeps of various shades of white ranging from blue to yellow tonalities, creating light, shadow, creases and folds. He sets her in an unidentifiable landscape under a blue sky. The subject of the Greek girl must have appealed to Corot as he also posed his favorite model, Emma Dobigny, in a Greek dress and fez a few years later (Robaut, no. 1995). He also posed the model for La Jeune Grecque wearing the same colorful fez in a painting formerly in the Havemeyer Collection, and now in the Brooklyn Museum (Robaut, no. 2147).
The earliest owner of La Jeune Grecque was a man named W. La Rochenoire, who had the painting in his possession in 1870. He most likely was one of those sophisticated collectors, who bought Corot's figure pictures during the artist's lifetime.
This painting has been examined and authenticated by Martin Dieterle.