Rating and value of works, drawings, paintings by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Master of the natural scene and source of inspiration for the Impressionists, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) brought a revival to the traditional landscape genre. As an avid traveler, this artist succeeded in freeing himself from the teachings of the École des Beaux-Arts in order to paint nature in a more authentic way. 

If you own a work by or based on the artist Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will guide you.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and send you a precise estimate of its value on the current market.

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Artist's rating and value

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot produced a variety of works, including paintings, watercolors and prints. He mainly depicted travel landscapes, portraits and genre scenes.

His views of Italy are particularly sought-after at auction and can fetch several hundred million euros at auction.

As evidenced by his oil on canvas Venice, vue du quai des Esclavons, adjudged over 6 million euros at Christie's in 2018. 

Order of value from the most basic to the most prestigious

Corot's style and technique

Corot, a master of artistic values, creates realistic landscapes that reflect his respect for nature. His compositions balance light and shadow, with slightly gray skies and integrated human figures.

He also excelled in delicate portraits, particularly of women and children. Corot uses drawing, particularly graphite and charcoal, and explores the cliché-glass technique.

From 1850, he reached artistic maturity, creating poetic landscapes inspired by his memories.

The life of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was born in 1796 into a wealthy family of fashion merchants. Although his father did not support his passion for painting, the young man finally managed to obtain a pension from his father.

First apprenticed to a draper, he did not enjoy his work and took evening classes in drawing at the Académie Suisse, quai des Orfèvres.

Corot soon joined the studio of Achille-Etna Michallon, who specialized in historical landscapes. The young artist thus began the first part of his career as an itinerant painter in Italy.

With financial help from his parents, he rented a studio on Quai Voltaire, which he used as his studio. He learned neoclassical principles and followed Michallon's advice, who encouraged him to paint in nature. After the death of his first master, he continued to train with Jean-Victor Bertin.

His interest in nature led him to paint in the Fontainebleau forest, and more particularly in the village of Barbizon, which gave its name to the school of painters who came to work there for many years.

Between 1825 and 1828, Corot traveled to various Italian cities, including Naples, Rome and Venice. He also took advantage of these productive years for his painting to travel to Auvergne, Brittany, Provence and Burgundy to capture as many landscapes as possible.  

A few years later, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot founds the Barbizon School. At the Salon of 1835, he first exhibited a painting entitled Hagar, now at the MET in New York, illustrating an episode from Genesis.

It wasn't until 1847 that he was finally honored with the Légion d'honneur. As a devout Catholic, he led a life on the fringes of society. In the 1850s, his painting is considered to have reached a certain maturity : he detaches himself from the landscape painted on the motif.

Close to Gustave Courbet, he painted with him in Saintes. An exhibition of works produced during this period bringing together 170 works will be organized, including their respective works as well as those of two other artists, Louis-Augustin Auguin and Hippolyte Pradelles.

He is particularly well known for having been the victim of forgers, with around 3,000 paintings attributed to him circulating on the market, whereas he actually painted fewer.

He ended his career renowned and very famous, earning a lot of money in the process. Known for his generosity, he in fact bought Honoré Daumier a house and gave money to Jean-François Millet, who lacked enough to raise his children.

He died in 1875, a year after the first Impressionist exhibition, where two of his students, Berthe Morisot and Pissarro, are represented.

Focus on Le coup de vent, JBC Corot, Musée de Reims

In this work by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, everything seems to vibrate under the powerful breath of the wind. The tree, leaning, almost bending, captures our gaze with its imposing strength, but also with its suppleness.

There's a palpable, almost dramatic tension in this scene, but without ever tipping over into exaggeration.

The cloud-laden sky foreshadows a storm, but Corot doesn't turn it into a terrifying spectacle. He maintains a subtle balance between the agitation of the elements and the tranquility of the earth.

Muted tones, between gray and brown, dominate this composition. Here, Corot is not looking for the bright light of Mediterranean skies, but rather a soft, enveloping atmosphere.

The ground, both muddy and desert-like, almost merges with the sky, creating a visual continuity that accentuates the impression of immensity. We sense the humidity in the air, a sensation of autumnal freshness that blends with the harshness of the elements.

The figure in the distance, almost insignificant in the face of nature, seems absorbed by the immensity of the landscape. Far from being a mere supporting figure, this human silhouette participates in the story told by Corot.

It recalls the smallness of man in the face of nature, a theme dear to the artist who, without ever sinking into the grandiose, succeeds in delicately evoking the power of the natural elements.

The tree, for its part, becomes almost a protagonist, with its tormented, wind-beaten branches. It embodies resilience, the ability to stand firm in the face of external forces, a theme that Corot subtly explores, all in simplicity.

It's not so much a tree that we see, but a symbol of nature's silent, ongoing struggle.

And so, Corot here offers us both a realistic and poetic vision of a landscape subjected to the whims of the wind. Nature, raw and unidealized, takes its rightful place in this composition.

Far from bright skies or shimmering lights, the artist opts for a dark palette, almost melancholy, but imbued with a profound serenity.

Gigapixel, Corot, Wheat field in the Morvan

The birth of the Barbizon School

This painting by Corot, with its vibrant, living nature, fits directly into the movement that was to give rise to the Barbizon School.

This group of painters, of which Corot was one of the pioneers, sought to capture nature in its rawest state, far removed from the idealized or heroic representations of landscape offered by academic painting.

Here, in this work, we can already see the beginnings of this approach: the attention paid to simple details, to the tree beaten by the wind, to the diffuse light of a sky laden with clouds. There is no quest for the spectacular, but rather a desire to do justice to the ordinary beauty of everyday landscapes.

Barbizon, a small village nestled on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest, became a gathering place in the 1830s for those artists eager to paint en plein air, directly confronted with nature. Corot, with his sensitive, intimate approach to landscape, was a source of inspiration for many of these painters.

He didn't just observe nature, he lived it, feeling its breath, its quiet strength, its changing character. In this work, we perceive this search for sincerity, a desire to show nature as it is, in all its silent splendor.

The Barbizon School was born precisely from this philosophy: to paint without artifice, to capture the moment, the atmosphere, the changing light.

Corot, through his travels in the forest of Fontainebleau and his love of rural landscapes, played a major role in this pictorial revolution.

He paved the way for a new way of seeing the natural world, closer, more authentic, and deeply respectful of the environment that surrounded it.

His signature

Not all of Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot's works are signed.

Although there are variations, here is a first example of his signature:

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