The site of the Calvary, a shrine built in 1628 at the top of a cliff overlooking the medieval town of Honfleur, was popular in the nineteenth century among tourists, pilgrims, and people offering prayers for men at sea. Corot painted this work during a trip to Normandy, probably in 1830. Its first known owner was the landscape painter Henri-Joseph Harpignies, whom Corot encouraged from the early 1850s onward.
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Title:Honfleur: Calvary
Artist:Camille Corot (French, Paris 1796–1875 Paris)
Date:ca. 1830
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:11 3/4 x 16 1/8 in. (29.8 x 41 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Bernhard Gift, by exchange, 1974
Object Number:1974.3
Inscription: Signed and inscribed: (lower left) COROT; (on cross) INRI
Henri Joseph Harpignies (until about 1880); [Georges Petit, Paris, about 1880–88]; John H. Converse, Philadelphia (1888–1911; his sale, Mendelssohn Hall, New York, January 6, 1911, no. 35, for $1,800 to Petit); [Georges Petit, Paris, from 1911]; Georges Renand, Paris (by 1939–67); [Wildenstein, New York, 1967]; Mrs. Richard J. Bernhard, New York (1967–d. 1969); The Bernhard Foundation, Inc., New York (1969–74)
Paris. Galerie Raphaël Gerard. "Quelques oeuvres choisies du XIXe et du XXe siècle," March 17–April 1, 1939, no. 13 (as "Calvaire sur la Côte de Grâce à Honfleur," lent by G. Renand).
Paris. Galerie Charpentier. "Le paysage français de Corot à nos jours," 1942, no. 35 (as "Paysage," possibly this work).
Paris. Galerie René Drouin. "Rivages de France," May 1942 [see information from Wildenstein in archive file].
Paris. Galerie Charpentier. "Marines," 1944, no. 34 (as "L'estuaire de la Seine," possibly this work).
Paris. Galerie Charpentier. "Plaisir de France," 1951, no. 40 (as "La Côte de Grâce").
Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum. "Het Franse Landschap van Poussin tot Cézanne," March 18–June 4, 1951, no. 16 (as "Honfleur: Le Calvaire de la Côte de Grâce").
Paris. Hector Brame. "C. Corot: Peintures—Dessins," June 14–July 5, 1957, no. 7 (as "Honfleur, calvaire de la Côte de Grâce").
Musée de Dieppe. "Corot, 1796–1875," July–September 1958, no. 7 (as "Honfleur - Calvaire de la Cote de Grace").
Art Institute of Chicago. "Corot, 1796–1875," October 6–November 13, 1960, no. 28 (as "Honfleur, calvaire de la côte de grace," lent by Georges Renand; probably this work, but catalogued as Robaut 224, 11 7/8 x 24 in., stamped "Vente Corot").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Summer Loan Exhibition: Paintings from Private Collections," Summer 1967, no. 20 (as "Calvary at Honfleur," lent by Mrs. Richard J. Bernhard).
New York. Wildenstein. "Corot," October 30–December 6, 1969, no. 7 (as "Honfleur, Calvaire de la Côte de Grâce," lent by the Bernhard Foundation).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, not in catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions, 1965–1975," December 6, 1975–March 23, 1976, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Barbizon: French Landscapes of the Nineteenth Century," February 4–May 10, 1992, no catalogue.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Corot 1796–1875," February 27–May 27, 1996, no. 45 (as "Honfleur. Calvaire de la côte de Grâce").
Ottawa. National Gallery of Canada. "Corot 1796–1875," June 21–September 22, 1996, no. 45.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Corot," October 29, 1996–January 19, 1997, no. 45.
Alfred Robaut. L'Œuvre de Corot: Catalogue raisonné et illustré. [reprint 1965]. Paris, 1905, vol. 2, pp. 78–79, no. 224 bis, ill., calls it "Honfleur—Calvaire de la Côte de Grâce"; catalogues a smaller painting of the same scene, without figures (R224; location unknown).
Corot. Paris, 1962, unpaginated, ill. (color), as "Honfleur: Le Calvaire de la Cote-de-Grace".
Germain Bazin. Corot. 3rd rev. ed. [1st ed., 1942; 2nd ed., 1951]. Paris, 1973, pp. 34, 278, ill. p. 144, as "Honfleur. Calvaire de la Cote de Grace," in a private collection, Paris; calls the related work (R224) a sketch for this painting.
Anthony M. Clark inThe Metropolitan Museum of Art: Notable Acquisitions, 1965–1975. New York, 1975, p. 95, ill.
Olga Raggio et al. Patterns of Collecting: Selected Acquisitions 1965–1975. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1975, p. 43.
René Huyghe. La Relève de l'imaginaire. La Peinture française au XIXe siècle: Réalisme, romantisme. Paris, 1976, p. 272, as "Calvaire de la Côte de Grâce".
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 404, ill. p. 403.
Vincent Pomarède inCorot. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, p. 37 n. 3, pp. 109–10, 396 n. 59, no. 45, ill. (color) [French ed., "Corot 1796–1875," Paris, pp. 76 n. 3, 160–61, 461 n. 75, no. 45, ill. (color)], dates it about 1829–30; notes that this picture was mostly painted out of doors and is among those "that originally inspired attempts to relate Corot to the Impressionist painters"; suggests that the signature may be false.
François Fossier et al. "Corot." Connaissance des arts [special exhibition issue for "Corot, 1796–1875"] (1996), p. 24, fig. 22 (color), as "Honfleur: Calvaire de la côte de Grâce".
Manuel Jover and Vincent Pomarède. "Camille Corot." Beaux Arts [special exhibition issue for "Corot 1796–1875"] (1996), fig. 49 (color), as "Honfleur, calvaire de la côte de Grâce".
John House inBoudin to Dufy: Impressionist and Other Masters from the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre. Ed. Timothy Wilcox and Margot Heller. Aldershot, England, 1996, p. 15, fig. 2.
Michael Pantazzi inCorot: Naturaleza, Emoción, Recuerdo. Ed. Vincent Pomarède. Exh. cat., Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, 2005, pp. 162, 368, fig. 3.3 (color), as "Honfleur. Calvaire de la côte de Grâce".
Dorit Schäfer inCamille Corot: Natur und Traum. Exh. cat., Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. Heidelberg, 2012, pp. 146–47, fig. 4 (color).
There is a smaller canvas of this scene without the figures (location unknown; see Robaut 1905, no. 224). Robaut also lists an etching after this work by Félix Augustin Milius in La Mer, published by Georges Petit.
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