Famous work · not an exact-location map point
Recollection of Mortefontaine
A silvery, dreamlike lakeside — a ‘souvenir’ that Corot built from the real park of Mortefontaine, north of Paris, and from memory.
No single real-world viewpoint
Corot's own title is 'Souvenir de Mortefontaine' — an idealised studio recollection, not a view of the place; the motif is repeated across several canvases and the park is private. No matchable viewpoint.
Recollection of Mortefontaine — at a glance
- Artist
- Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875)
- Year
- 1864
- Movement
- French landscape (Barbizon era)
- Place
- The park of Mortefontaine, Oise, north of Paris
- Viewpoint
- A remembered, idealised ‘souvenir’ — the park is real (private); this is a mood, not a matchable view
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 65 × 89 cm
- Now at
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
Overview
Souvenir de Mortefontaine is one of the best-loved of Corot's late ‘souvenirs’ — landscapes composed in the studio as poetic recollections rather than views painted on the spot. Made in 1864, it shows a still lake at dawn or dusk: a large feathery tree leaning out over the water on the left, a woman and two children gathering flowers beneath it, the far shore a soft blur of trees and a pale building, all in a silvery, misty light. It is oil on canvas, about 65 by 89 cm, and it hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Where was Recollection of Mortefontaine painted?
Scholarship Mortefontaine is a village in the Oise, north of Paris, near Ermenonville, whose château had famous landscaped English gardens with lakes and islands. Corot knew the park and drew on it, but the picture is not a topographic record: it is an idealised, half-remembered composition, and Corot varied and repeated the motif in other ‘souvenirs’. The park of Mortefontaine still exists (privately), so the kind of place is real, but this is a mood, not a viewpoint that can be matched.
What is in the painting?
A tall, delicate tree with trailing foliage leans from the left bank far out over the calm lake, balanced by smaller trees at the right. Under it, a woman in a red bodice reaches up into the branches while two children pick flowers at the water's edge. The lake is glassy; the far bank dissolves into grey-green haze with a hint of a pale house. The light is dim, even, and pearly.
Look closely
The leaning tree
A tall, feathery tree arcs from the left bank far out over the still lake — the picture's frame.
The flower-gatherers
A woman in a red bodice reaches into the branches while two children pick flowers at the water's edge.
The dissolving far shore
The opposite bank blurs into grey-green haze with a hint of a pale house.
The dabbed foliage
The leaves are flicked on with a loaded brush — Corot's late silvery manner.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A single leaning tree framing a misty lake, small figures for scale, in Corot's soft silver-grey tonality.
Scholarship Corot builds the picture around the arc of the big tree and the mirror of the lake, keeps the far shore vague, and unifies everything in a narrow range of silvery greys and greens with a few red accents in the figures. The feathery foliage is dabbed on with a loaded brush — the signature of his late manner.
History & provenance
The painting was bought by the French state at the sale after Corot's death and is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Sources
- Musée du Louvre, Paris — collection entry for Camille Corot, ‘Souvenir de Mortefontaine’ (1864)
- Gary Tinterow et al., ‘Corot’ (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1996)
Related paintings
The road from Sèvres to Paris
1855
Corot's quiet later landscape near his family home — the same soft grey light.
The Bridge at Narni
1826
Corot's Italian bridge of 1826 — the plein-air study behind the later ‘souvenirs’.
Chartres Cathedral
1830
Corot's plain, direct 1830 view — the opposite of the misty souvenir mode.
More by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot
The Bridge at Narni
The road from Sèvres to Paris
Castel Sant'Angelo and Tiber