Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille

This page forms part of a series of pages dedicated to the many artists who worked in Caudebec-en-Caux. A full list of all the artists with a link to their works can be found at the bottom of this page.

NOTE: Caudebec-en-Caux has recently merged (2016) with other towns nearby and is now called “Rives-en-Seine“. However, since the artists called the town by its original name in their paintings, we will continue to refer to the place by its old name.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Movement(s): Realism

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796 – 1875) was a French landscape and portrait painter as well as a printmaker in etching. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.

His family were bourgeois people—his father was a wigmaker and his mother a milliner—and unlike the experience of some of his artistic colleagues, throughout his life he never felt the want of money, as his parents made good investments and ran their businesses well. After his parents married, they bought the millinery shop where his mother had worked and his father gave up his career as a wigmaker to run the business side of the shop. The store was a famous destination for fashionable Parisians and earned the family an excellent income. Corot was the second of three children born to the family, who lived above their shop during those years.

Corot received a scholarship to study at the Lycee Pierre-Corneille in Rouen, but left after having scholastic difficulties and entered a boarding school. He “was not a brilliant student, and throughout his entire school career he did not get a single nomination for a prize, not even for the drawing classes.” Unlike many masters who demonstrated early talent and inclinations toward art, before 1815 Corot showed no such interest. During those years he lived with the Sennegon family, whose patriarch was a friend of Corot’s father and who spent much time with young Corot on nature walks. It was in this region that Corot made his first paintings after nature.

With his parents’ support, Corot followed the well-established pattern of French painters who went to Italy to study the masters of the Italian Renaissance and to draw the crumbling monuments of Roman antiquity.

When out of his studio, Corot traveled throughout France, mirroring his Italian methods, and concentrated on rustic landscapes. He returned to the Normandy coast and to Rouen, the city he lived in as a youth. Corot also did some portraits of friends and relatives, and received his first commissions. His sensitive portrait of his niece, Laure Sennegon, dressed in powder blue, was one of his most successful and was later donated to the Louvre. He typically painted two copies of each family portrait, one for the subject and one for the family, and often made copies of his landscapes as well.

Despite great success and appreciation among artists, collectors, and the more generous critics, his many friends considered, nevertheless, that he was officially neglected, and in 1874, a short time before his death, they presented him with a gold medal. He died in Paris of a stomach disorder aged 78 and was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

A number of followers called themselves Corot’s pupils. The best known are Camille Pissarro, Eugene Boudin, Berthe Morisot, Stanislas Lepine, Antoine Chintreuil, Francois-Louis Francais, Charles Le Roux, and Alexandre Defaux.

Click here to read Corot’s full bio on Wikipedia.

NOTE: Click on the image below for a bigger version (no new window will open).

NOTE: A black box like this one, means that there is an explanation text about today’s situation of the painting above it.
NOTE: Click on this photo icon anywhere below a painting to see a photo of what the area looks like today.

NOTE: A blue box like this one, means there is an explanation or a note.

Jumieges

The village of Jumieges (population: 1,800) is dominated by its abbey (in ruins), and it is located to the South/East of Caudebec-en-Caux and to the West of Rouen.

1829 - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot - Jumieges
1829 – Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot – Jumieges

TODAY: The Jumieges abbey ruins still exist today, and can be visited.

Corot painted in many places in France, here they are (a link “” will appear to his works below when published):

  • Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes
    • Monnetier-Mornex
  • Bourgogne-Franche-Comte (Burgundy)
    • Lormes
    • Macon
    • Sens
  • Brittany
    • Dinan
  • Centre-Val de Loire
    • Beaune-la-Rolande
    • Chartres
    • Epernon
    • Orleans
  • Hauts-de-France
    • Arras
    • Beauvais
    • Boulogne-sur-Mer
    • Douai
    • Dunkirk
    • Essomes-sur-Marne
    • Marissel
    • Pas-de-Calais
    • Pierrefonds
    • Saint Quentin Des Pres
    • Soissons
  • Normandy
  • Nouvelle-Aquitaine
    • La Rochelle
    • Mont-de-Marsan
  • Occitanie
    • Villeneuve-les-Avignon
  • Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
    • Antibes
    • Avignon
    • Toulon

Artists featured here who painted in Caudebec-en-Caux (but not limited to) are (names marked with a “*” indicates that the artist did NOT work directly in Caudebec, instead worked in villages nearby):

NOTE: You can subscribe to our new articles by entering your email address in the box on the right column (or at the very bottom of this article) and clicking on the button “Subscribe”.

You will need to check your incoming emails and validate your subscription. If you can’t see an email from us, check your Spam folder. Without validating your email address, you will not get notifications from us. WE WILL NEVER GIVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO ANYONE!

Related Posts

  • 90
    Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Smallwood, William FromeWilliam Frome Smallwood (1806 - 1834) was a British artist who made several paintings in France and the United Kingdom. However, almost nothing else is known about this artist. Here is 1 of his paintings he made in the nearby Jumieges. Smallwood to our knowledge did not paint in Caudebec…
  • 89
    Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Boggs, Frank MyersFrank Boggs was an American (and later French) painter (born in the USA, died in France). He studied art in Paris, and travelled between France (Normandy), The Netherlands, Italy and Belgium. He naturelized to French citizenship. He is buried next to his artist son in Paris. Here is the one…
  • 89
    Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Callow, WilliamWilliam Callow was an English landscape painter, engraver and water colourist. He travelled extensively in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, had a large number of pupils, and enjoyed favour with the royal family. Here is one of his works we found related to Caudebec-en-Caux.
  • 89
    Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Garneray, Ambroise LouisAmbroise Louis Garneray (1783 – 1857) was a French corsair, painter and writer. He held as prisoner-of-war by the British for eight years. Here is the one painting of his we found dedicated to Caudebec-en-Caux, Normandy.
  • 89
    Caudebec-en-Caux – The Artists – Davies, DavidDavid Davies was an Australian artist who was associated with the Heidelberg School, the first significant Western art movement in Australia. In 1932 Davies moved to Looe, Cornwall, England, where he died on 26 March 1939. We found one painting of his which he made in Caudebec-en-Caux
Today: The ruins of the Jumieges Abbey
Today: The ruins of the Jumieges Abbey
Powered by
Scroll to Top