Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

Memory of Italy (Souvenir d’Italie)

Etching, 1866
Museum purchase, 1912.1127

French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot traveled to Rome in 1825. The quality of the light he experienced in Italy influenced his art. In his landscapes, space is flattened into simple areas of shimmering lights and darks. Although Corot etched superbly, he showed very little interest in the printing process. He worked on whatever surface was near at hand—copper, a glass plate coated with collodion (cliché verre), even transfer paper—and rarely supervised the processing and printing.