Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot was a French landscape and portrait artist who was influential in the development of landscape painting. Many of his paintings were balanced, structured compositions of historical, Biblical or classical subjects, but he also painted idyllic rural scenes. He worked with soft, harmonious tones of green, blue, silver and grey.

Corot, like many artists of his time, created oil sketches outside, working directly from nature, as preparatory ideas and test-pieces for works later painted in the studio. Corot’s desire and ability to reproduce the character of the sketches and their naturalistic representation of light in his finished paintings attracted the Impressionist artists, including Claude Monet. When Monet visited his first Salon exhibition in Paris in 1859, he wrote to the artist Eugène Boudin that …most of the landscape painters were represented…’ including’… some nice Corot’s…

This painting is typical of Corot’s atmospheric compositions of country life, with a quiet narrative dominated by the carefully observed depiction of trees. Previously, it was thought to have been painted by a close follower of Corot’s, but, following cleaning and analysis in preparation for this exhibition, the evidence presented in the style and signature strongly suggest that this is an original Corot.

Provenance: Bequeathed by J. A. D. Shipley, 1909. Shipley Art Gallery collection

Object description
Type: Easel Painting
Location: South Shields Museum, Tyne & Wear
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Jean-Baptist-Camille Corot (1796-1875)
Date: unknown

Image Details
Date: 4 May 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 500
Licensing: Image of a North East Museums asset. This image cannot be licensed.