J. B. C. COROT (1796-1875) LE LAC Canvas, 62 inches by 52 inches

IN the centre of the picture, by the water's edge, rises a cluster of trees, brown in tone. Standing a little way in the water is a brown cow; other cows are seen among the trees to the right, and a man is observed on the low bank to the left. Away beyond stretches the broad lake to a line of low distant hills, along which a bright light travels. The scene in its powerful rendering of nature vibrates throughout with the most sensitive lights and tenderly opposing shadows. The pictures, which was painted in 1861, is signed twice at the lower left "Corot." It has been etched by T. N. Chauvel and also by Felix Bracquemond. It was No. 696 in the Paris Salon of 1861, and again exhibitd at he Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1875, at the Seconde Exposition de Cent Chefs d' CEuvre, Paris, in 1892, and was hung in the place of honor at the Paris Exposition de Centenaire de Corot in 1895. It was seen at the Guildhall, London, in 1901, at the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1910, and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in the same year. It has been many times repro-duced, and n Thomson's work on the Barbizon School of Painters it is mentioned as "the most important of all Corot's works." It has been in the de Beriot, Gavet, Brun and Frais-sinet de Bellanger collections in Paris, and in that of Alexander young, Esq. of London. 117 CE