FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

HUNTINGTON MUSEUM OF ART, HUNTINGTON, W.V. ACQUIRES IMPORTANT COROT FROM REHS GALLERIES, INC.

Rehs Galleries, Inc., New York City, is pleased to announce that Jean B.C. Corot's Environs de Mantes, Recontre au bord de la Seine, a little gem, has found a new home in the collection of the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia ... a museum that has a very strong collection of French Barbizon and Realist paintings.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1895) moved between Neo-classicism, Realism, and Romanticism as well as toward an affinity with the Barbizon school, though he had a firm foundation by studying Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine. More than just a painter, Corot also did many drawings, glass prints, and watercolors. His ability to capture expressive light effects within his paintings has been suggested as having paved the way for the Impressionist movement, especially since the Impressionists revered him and thought of Corot as their teacher.

In 1895, writing in La Nouvelle Revue, Georges LeComte commented:
Corot is the greatest painter of the century. Beautiful painter, yes, always interesting, but especially during our century in which painting, so preoccupied with literature and philosophy, has unfortunate tendencies to neglect the plastic qualities. Corot has them all, marvelously: the logic and the sureness of composition, the expressive simplicity of drawing, the fairness of values, the harmonious sobriety of color, and a freshness of vision.

The splendors of light and sun made, on this prodigiously gifted Corot, a profound impression that becomes plainly apparent if we compare the paintings he brought back [from Italy] with works done earlier. He was charmed, conquered and entirely abandoned himself to this sensation. In this delight with color and light, he lost his memory of the traditions which paralyzed him; he looked at nature and life without reminiscences, without preconceived ideas. When he returned to France, he knew how to look personally at nature, and feel the varied beauties and colors.

An image of this painting has been attached. For high-resolution image, please contact the gallery.