Description

This scene is imbued with a sense of quiet and stillness, broken only by the lone female bather pulling herself out of the water by a branch. Although the setting is a real hillside lake he visited in northern Italy, Camille Corot painted the view from memory, having returned to Paris in 1843 from the last of three trips to the region. Thus, rather than presenting an accurate record of the location, the painting is a picturesque souvenir, with the topography transformed as much by the artist’s silvery-gray and deep-green palette as by his fond reminiscences.

Provenance

M. L. by 1867 [lent to Paris 1867]. Albert Hecht (died 1889), Paris, by 1875 [lent to Paris 1875]. William Schaus, New York, by 1884 [this and the following according to 1912 Morgan sale catalogue, below]; sold to Mary J. Morgan (died 1885); her estate sale, American Art Association, New York, March 3–5, 1886, lot 216, for $14,000 to Thomas Newcomb [price and buyer according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the William Randolph Hearst Archive, Long Island University]; Thomas Newcomb (died 1901), New York; his widow, Alice Newcomb, New York; her estate sale, The American Art Galleries, New York, January 24, 1912, no. 26, as Lake Nemi for $85,000 to W. W. Seaman as agent, possibly on behalf of Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. [price and buyer as agent according to New York Times 1912]. Cyrus Hall McCormick Jr. (died 1936), Chicago, by 1923 [according to loan documentation, Art Institute Archives]; on intermittent loan to the Art Institute, from 1923 [according to documentation cited above]; his estate; portion of the estate that passed to his son, Cyrus McCormick III (died 1970), Chicago, October 15, 1941 [according to a letter from Judson F. Stone to McCormick Properties Investments dated October 15, 1941, copy in curatorial file]; his second wife Florence Nicks Sittenham Davey McCormick (died 1979), New York; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1979.