Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875)
Around 1850–55
Oil paint on canvas
46 x 38.5 cm
Acquired by Oskar Reinhart in 1938
Reading, or perhaps daydreaming, a young woman bows her head over a book as a flock of sheep grazes in the distance. Camille Corot only loosely implies an outdoor setting, focusing all our attention on the model.
Best known as a landscape painter, whose work inspired the Impressionists, Corot also pioneered a new kind of painting in which figures, neither portraits nor characters in a story, are represented out of time, lost in thought or reading.
This was one of Oskar Reinhart’s most cherished works. He ultimately acquired ten canvases by Corot.