COROT : VENUS AU BAIN

This work of Jean Baptise Camille Corot (1796-1875) is titled Venus au bain (Venus bathing). Corot was the leader of the Barbizon school in France and is considered as the precursor or the pioneer of the Impressionism.

By 1845 Baudelaire led a charge pronouncing Corot the leader in the “modern school of landscape painting" but his works have been very often criticized as weak and “pale” or having “naive awkwardness". By the mid-1850’s, Corot’s increasingly impressionistic style began to get the recognition that fixed his place in French art.

He died in Paris of a stomach disorder and was buried at Père Lachaise. A number of followers called themselves Corot's pupils :Camille Pissaro, Berthe Morisot, Le Roux et Alexandre DeFaux.

In 1959, Venus was sold for 27,000 Pounds and in 1995 it fetched $ 2.81 million at Christie's London making the canvass one of the 100 most expensive nudes in the art world.