- Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld
Frame: 62 7/8 × 72 1/2 × 6 1/4 in. (159.7 × 184.2 × 15.9 cm)
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Camille Corot was much beloved during his lifetime for his ethereal, dreamy landscapes that often combined scenes from mythology with a very personal interpretation of nature observed. Claude Monet himself said, "There is only one master here: Corot."
In this painting, the fabled musician Orpheus--who beguiled the Greek gods to allow him to retrieve his beloved wife, who had been fatally bitten by a snake--leads her tenderly from the underworld. In ancient times, it was believed that the deceased continued to exist as spirits, seen here gathered in small groups beneath the delicate trees. Corot, a great music lover, has imbued this work with a sense of melancholy lyricism that hints at the tragic end of the story: Orpheus loses Eurydice forever when he turns to look at her before reaching the world of the living.
The sense of filtered reality is enhanced by Corot's extraordinarily subtle use of color. He strikes a wistfully sweet tonal chord, carefully modulating a narrow range of grays, greens, and blues. Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld looks forward to the artist's signature paintings, the Souvenirs and Memoires, in which Corot removes all narrative elements and lets his landscapes stand as "pure" objects.
ProvenanceJohn Saulnier, Paris; [M.M. Arnold and Tripp, Paris]; Mrs. Susan D. Warren, Boston; Emerson McMillin, Esq., New York; E.W. Burke, Cleveland; possibly by descent to Edmund Stevenson Burke, Jr., Cleveland; Private collection, Switzerland; purchased by MFAH, 1987.
Exhibition HistoryParis, Salon of 1861.
Limoges, 1862.
Bordeaux, 1865.
"Exposition de l'oeuvre de Corot," Ecole Nationale de Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1875.
"Exposition de maîtres du siècle," Paris, May 1886.
"Cleveland Art Loan Exposition," Cleveland School of Art, November 25–December 17, 1913.
"French Art Since Eighteen Hundred," Cleveland Museum of Art, November 7–December 9, 1929.
"Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition," Cleveland Museum of Art, June 26–October 4, 1936.
"Corot," The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1946.
"Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot," Wildenstein & Co., New York, October 30–December 6, 1969.
"Jean François Millet et ses amis-peintres de Barbizon," Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo, August 15–September 30, 1970; City Art Museum, Kyoto, Japan, October 4–November 7, 1970; Cultural Center, Fukuoka, Japan, November 12–December 6, 1970.
"Corot," Wildenstein, Johannesburg, April 4–April 25, 1975; South African National Gallery, Cape Town, May 1975.
"Corot, 1796-1875," Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, February 28–May 27, 1996; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 20–September 22, 1996; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 22, 1996–January 19, 1997.
“Masterpieces of European Painting from the 15th to 20th Centuries from
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation," The Museum of Art, Ehime, Matsuyama, Japan, April 13–May 30,1999; Chiba Prefectural Art Museum, Chiba, Japan, June 5–July 11, 1999; Mie Prefectural Art Museum, Tsu, Japan, July 17–August 22, 1999; Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan, August 27–October 3, 1999.
"Corot. Nature, Emotion, Souvenir," Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, June 7–September 11, 2005; Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy, October 9, 2005–January 8, 2006.
"Camille Corot. Nature and Dream," Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany, September 28, 2012–January 20, 2013.
"The Art of Music," The San Diego Museum of Art, September 26, 2015–January 5, 2016.
"Praised and Ridiculed: French Painting 1820–1880," Kunsthaus Zürich, November 10, 2017–January 28, 2018.
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