Pastoral Landscape with Figures

Corot was a seminal and prolific figure in 19th century French painting. Classical in style in his earlier years, his mid- and late-career plein-air painting was transitional to what would become Impressionism. Turner and Corot were two of the most important influences on Monet’s developing style.

Particularly by his later years, Corot’s works were widely popular, and Corot maintained a large studio in which, notoriously, he would often sign works largely executed by his pupils. This, in combination with widespread forgery after his death, has resulted in thousands of ‘Corots’ in the market, and without good provenance, it can often be difficult to distinguish between a genuine Corot, a workshop of Corot, and a later after Corot. The painting on offer here is certainly by a better hand than many of the blatant forgeries on the market, and could derive from Corot’s own workshop, if not from his own hand. But without further expert analysis and provenance research, it is offered here as ‘attributed to Corot’.