International studio (58.1916)

The Lithographs of Corot

is rather heavy, with trees and cottages and a
horseman, who, although by no means accurately
drawn, still moves along. Another is of Willows,
■with all Corot’s finest qualities of tone and com-
position. In the other two there are Urge figures
in the front plan, which are somewhat out of
proportion to the landscape, and therefore not very
attractive.
In addition to the twelve auto-lithographs
described and four “direct” lithographs there
existed also three subjects drawn on transfer paper,
two of which were afterwards published. In 187 1,
when experimenting to execute the twelve folio
lithographs, Corot made a sketch on paper, Sous
Bois at Arras, of which only a few copies were
pulled. The subject was simply some trees, with
indications of a cow in the foreground, on paper
ten by eight inches, upright, and very roughly
executed, so that the artistic interest is at a
minimum.
The other two were issued in July 1874, just
a few months before Corot died, and one hundred
proofs were published. Both of these are charming
and characteristic drawings, with feathery trees,
equal in quality to any of the portfolio dozen.
They were entitled Le Fort Detache and La Lectzire
sous les Arbres, and in both the foliage is very
delicately drawn.
Of what may be called “direct” lithographs, i.e.
drawings actually made on the lithographic stone
itself, and not by means of autographic or transfer
paper, there are only four examples known to have
been prepared by Corot, and of these proofs of one
only are in existence. In 1873, when the indefati-
gable Alfred Robaut was preparing his list of the
artist’s works, Corot, in answer to his questionings,
could only remember these four; and, as stated,
of three of these no proofs can be found. Corot
made little drawings showing the designs of all of
them for M. Robaut, but these were only vague
recollections made fifty years after the originals
were drawn on stone. Even their dimensions
were forgotten by the artist, and all he could
recollect was that they were about quarto size.
The one of which two proofs exist measures
about seven inches in height by four in width,
and was prepared in the year 1836 to illus-
trate a small brochure for a play called “La
Caisse d’Epargne,” by Edouard Delalain, with
music by his brother Henri Delalain, who wrote
under the name of St. Yves. These young men
were sons of Corot’s old friend Delalain, with
whom he was engaged in business before he
finally became an artist. In the lithograph Corot’s

work consisted of the figure of Mdlle. Rosalie, a
peasant girl in clogs, but piquant and full of life,
and this design was placed in the centre of the
page, and measured about four inches high only.
It was therefore far from important, but being
Corot’s first and only existing example of such
draughtsmanship, it is specially interesting.
It was in 1822, when the painter was still at
Delalain’s office, that he made the three lithographs
vaguely indicated fifty years later to M. Robaut.
Corot related that he remembered stealing out of
Delalain’s house to carry the lithographic stones to
the printer. One of the sketches was The Guard
Dies but Never Surrenders, and shows a Grenadier
standing before a large tree trunk grasping his flag
and surrounded by English soldiers who thrust at
him with their bayonets; another was called The
Plague at Barcelona, and showed a peasant seated
in the foreground desolate and alone ; and the
last represented a village fete in the style of the
Flemish Kermess, and it had a very large number
of figures.
Therefore, when Corot again began drawing
lithographs in 1871, his previous experience, being
of figures only, was of very little service to him,
but he would remember the general manner of
working; and therefore the idea, when proposed
to him at a time when he wanted something fresh,
proved interesting and acceptable.
In order to complete this brief sketch of Corot’s
work outside his painting, it may be stated that he
executed fourteen plates in etching, several of
them being remarkably fine landscape subjects.
These, which are not now difficult to obtain from
the principal dealers in prints, will be found very
interesting to the collector. Corot also made
many experiments in glass processes, a character
of work which various artists occupied themselves
with about i860—Millet, Rousseau, Daubigny all
experimenting in it. The process consisted of
pouring coloured varnish over a sheet of glass, and
when dry removing it either by a brush or point, so
as to make it partly or wholly translucent, thus
forming a sort of negative of which ordinary photo-
graphic prints could be prepared on sensitised
paper. Corot seems to have enjoyed this kind of
work, for he prepared over sixty different plates,
from which our great authority for these details,
M. Nelaton, prints reproductions collected by M.
Alfred Robaut. And finally it may be noted that
Corot at his death left nearly six hundred drawings
of various kinds, mostly in black and white, some
of them complete but the majority very slight.
D. C. T.

TOO