Entrance of La Rochelle

In 1896 Renoir spent time in La Rochelle, the old port on France's Atlantic coast, and he found its light hard to catch. The town had a particular pull for him because of another painter. Camille Corot had painted this harbour in 1851, a sunlit view he sent to the Paris Salon the next year, and Renoir revered him. Talking years later to his dealer Ambroise Vollard, Renoir said that Corot had rendered the red brick of La Rochelle's houses in a way he had struggled to match. His own view is looser and paler. The two stone towers that have guarded the harbour mouth since the 14th century rise in a pinkish haze, a white lighthouse stands off to the left, and the sail of a boat cuts in close across the foreground.